Day 20 - Yachi Onsen To Yakeyama, Okuse - Hot Springs Walking Tour Of Northern Japan
Day 20 - Yachi Onsen To Yakeyama, Okuse - Hot Springs Walking Tour Of Northern Japan
I woke up early in the morning to go soak in the milky, sulphuric onsen.
It is impossible to wake Jules early to take a morning soak.
He claims that it is too cold outside for him and too early to enjoy it.
For me, it is a second opportunity to enjoy these unique Onsen experiences that we probably will never visit again.
By 6:00 in the morning, I had put on my yukata and walked down the drafty, dark corridor to the hot baths.
It was wonderful to soak for an hour before breakfast.
We packed our backpacks and dressed warmly, with down jackets and warm hats under our cowboy hats, because my hair was wet and the weather outside was so cold that my hair would have been frozen within an hour.
It was the coldest day of our pilgrimage.
We dressed warmly but our fingers were very cold without proper gloves.
Breakfast was a modest, traditional Japanese breakfast, but it did include a hot miso soup with mountain mushrooms.
We started walking at about 8:00 am.
The lady at the front desk was out for her morning run, wearing only sandals with no socks, and said goodbye to us after we checked out and walked through the forest to the main road.
Most of the walk today was downhill.
First, we walked through a thick beech forest which was beautiful, but full of bears and very cold.
By 10:00 am, after we had gone about 8 km, we came upon a fork in the road.
Both roads will take us to our destination, but one went through a forest, and the other went by way of a plateau.
We had to make a choice.
The forest road was darker and cold.
It was also a narrower road and it had a tunnel.
But it also had a pond that I wanted to photograph, because it was surrounded by maple trees in autumn colors.
We decided to wait a few moments and see which road got more traffic.
Most of the cars continued on the forest road.
Being a narrow road full of cars, we chose the road through the plateau.
It was indeed quieter, and we were able to avoid walking on a busy road with a tunnel and no sidewalks, but we missed a scenic pond.
After about another hour of walking, we joined the main road.
By this time, I wanted to sit down and have a short break.
We discovered a hiking path by the river, which paralleled the main road.
It was so scenic, and not on the car road.
It was so nice to feel the earth beneath our feet, instead of the hard asphalt.
We did pass by some wooden benches, but they were all soaking wet from yesterday’s rains.
We stopped to rest on a stone bench, which was dry.
It was by the river and overlooking a beautiful waterfalls and rapids.
We had a hot tea and a snack of mochi made with black honey, which was so tasty we devoured the entire package.
Our beautiful hiking path terminated by the river, where we had booked a room in a modest guesthouse for the night.
it has a small but very popular restaurant on the first floor, and a few guest rooms with shared bathroom and toilets on the second floor.
We have stayed in modest guesthouses while walking long pilgrimages in Japan, and most of the time we loved the experience.
But today was so cold, and the thought of walking down the corridor of a guesthouse, or possibly down the narrow stairs at night to use the toilets, didn’t seem very appealing to me.
I considered the humble guesthouse and thought to myself that today’s walk was very short.
We had only walked 13 kilometers, and we arrived so early that maybe we should just forfeit the money we paid and hop on a bus and go down to lake Towada, where there are fabulous onsen hotels…
We could return tomorrow morning by bus and do the walk as scheduled…
I put the idea to Jules, who told me not to jump to conclusions.
He said we should go in and get a sense of the place.
If we didn’t like the vibes we could leave.
I told him that we can’t do that.
We cannot leave after we have checked in.
It would be terribly impolite.
We could simply not check in and forget about the money, which wasn’t much, or if we did go in, we must stay for the night.
Finally, we decided to give it a go, and entered the restaurant.
The owner told us that check in was at 3:00 pm, but that we were welcome to store our backpacks until then.
Because it was time to eat lunch, we settled into one of the only available tables and ordered lunch.
The lunch was a set meal of a river trout baked with coarse salt served with some side dishes, rice and soup.
It was a good lunch, and the place looked clean and tidy, so we felt reassured about staying there.
After lunch, we went to the only other eating establishment in the village, which was a cafe that served coffee, hot cocoa, pastas and apple pies.
The owner was a romantic man, dressed in a buttoned-up shirt, a vest and a long apron.
He prepared all the food and the drinks.
Other people were eating his delicious looking pastas.
He had his old classic motorcycle on display in the middle of the cafe, covered in green vines.
On the walls, he had photos of Audrey Hepburn, looking all young and beautiful in her evening dress, and in a convertible with a head scarf, driving through Monte Carlo.
I contemplated these romantic ideas of female beauty, which I have often seen in my travels through Japan and elsewhere.
There is a societal need to glamorize feminine beauty, and prioritize it over happiness and strength.
Hepburn suffered from malnutrition, acute anemia, respiratory problems and edema that impacted her for much of her life.
She also struggled with severe eating disorders, particularly anorexia, which plagued her during most of her acting career.
After struggling with her body and eating disorders all her life, she finally passed away from stomach cancer.
When these women continue to be focused on their looks and modeling or acting careers, they sacrifice their spiritual development and delay the discovery of their powers.
Strength is beauty, yet the male-driven cultures that run the world make women believe that looking frail and thus dependent on men’s physical strength, is the ultimate in beauty and femininity.
We stayed in the cafe until the late afternoon, when it was time to check into our hotel.
We were given a comfortable Japanese room with soft futons on the tatami rice mats.
The toilet was just a few doors from our room, and not downstairs.
The shower was hot and powerful and they had a laundry machine and drier to wash our clothes.
Dinner was included in our price, and it was fabulous, with lots of seasonal vegetables, Chrysanthemum flowers pickled in vinegar and some fish.
They also sold some snacks for travelers in their shop, so we bought some chocolate and bananas to eat for lunch tomorrow.
Before bedtime, we chatted about our walking plans for tomorrow.
We will be walking to Towada lake, but the lake is huge and our hotel is located much farther than the eastern shores.
If we start walking early in the morning, we would have enough time to complete the walk and arrive at the lake in time to catch a sightseeing boat that takes tourists to Yasumiya, which is on the southwestern shores of the lake and just a short walk to our Onsen hotel.
Reassured that we had an easy plan for tomorrow, and a very scenic walk, we fell asleep content and happy.
With love and blessings,
Tali
Walked today - 13 km.
Total walked to date - 295 km.
