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Chapter 6: Kappa Noodles

Chapter 7: Gone With the Rain >>

函館ー大間 東日本フェリー ばあゆ船
Aboard Higashi-Nihon Ferry "Baayu" from Hakodate to Ooma
Mon 09 Oct 2000 10:14

Morning was a bit hectic: I'd been a little overoptimistic about the time it would take to pack up my tent and, despite ejecting from my cocoon at 6 AM, made it to the train station at 6:52 with all of two minutes to spare and my tent still drenched in dew. No matter what the weather the day before, my camping mornings are evidently never sunny...

So now, after almost two weeks, I'm leaving Hokkaido. In a way this trip has been odd, since (in terms of distance) the central point was reached on the 3rd day at Kamuiwakka and every kilometer after it brings me closer to Tokyo... and with few must-see destinations along the way the temptation to just get home is strong.

But one place I definitely want to see -- and will hopefully get to today -- is Osore-zan (恐山), usually translated as "Dread Mountain", although osore (恐) has a rather remarkable range of meanings ranging from "fear" to "thanks". The concept of Osore-zan is rather simple though: it's nothing less than the entrance to the underworld, where the boddhisattva Jizo guides the souls of children across the river Sanzu-no-kawa. Osore-zan is also the home of the itako, the blind shamanistic mediums who can communicate with the souls of the dead, and -- if my 5-year-old information is correct -- the autumn itako festival should start today. Unfortunately I have very little solid ground to go on as the three-day weekend has shut down most sources of tourist info and I'm still on the wrong island. Plan: hitch to Ohata and figure out where to head next. Is there really temple lodging available at Entsuji?

青森県 恐山 菩提寺
Bodaiji Temple, Osorezan, Aomori-ken
Mon 09 Oct 2000 14:18

I got a ride to Mutsu courtesy of a Japanese navy cadet from the same town and his girlfriend from Yokohama, coming from a 3-day tour in Hokkaido. A quick check at the tourist office revealed that, much to my surprise, all my advance info had been correct: there was temple lodging at Osore-zan and the matsuri was starting today... so naturally the temple lodging was full. (Well, there was one tiny flaw: the temple is called Bodaiji, Entsuji is in Mutsu and has a little hall at Osorezan.) After some thought I opted for the Mutsu Ryokan, which, despite the name, is priced like a minshuku (6000 yen with two meals), looks like a minshuku and acts like a minshuku (communal meals, lay out your own bedding, etc.) The poor obasan running the place was scared out of her wits at the appearance of the first gaijin ever in the place, but managed to mostly conceal it behind a smile a mile wide and an effusion of overly polite language. I don't think I've heard a "Yoroshoo gozaimasu" (「宜しょう御在ます」), as opposed to the normal "Ii" for "OK", since the J2J-era visit to Daigo...

Jizo guarding the entrance

Sanmon Gate

Monks in procession

After dumping my baggage I quit the "strictly functional" Mutsu (for once LP was right on the mark) and hopped on a bus up to Ozorezan. Dread Mountain should of course be visited on a dark and stormy night with howling winds and flashes of lightning, but no, it was warm and sunny, puffy little clouds floated across the sky as the canned recording in the bus chirped happily about the wails of the souls of unborn children as they crossed the river into the netherworld. Thanks to the matsuri, bus service was tripled (the one I took had two passangers) and there was an interesting Amidist ceremony at the central temple, but the grounds were also inundated with tourist groups slurping on ice cream, and the intense geothermal activity of the place heated up the place to temperatures unseen (-felt?) since Tokyo.

A sulphurous pit of Hell

Tourist in the wasteland

No, this is not Waikiki

Basically, the Osorezan temple area (the actual mountain is a bit further away) is one large jigoku (地獄, "hell"), ie. sulphuric hot spring, with dozens of little steam/liquid-emitting outlets, Jizo statues scattered all of the place and craggy volcanic rocks built into piles by monks and bereaved parents. The jigoku is at the edge of the lagoon-like Usorizanko, with a sparkling white beach because the noxious chemicals kill everything except ravens and beetles that subsist on the offerings of pious visitors.

Bridge over the Sanzu-no-kawa River

Offerings to children's souls

Shacks of the itako

The lake is drained by the Sanzu-no-kawa (三途川 or 正津川, take your pick), which has a picturesque little red bridge for Hello Kitty-toting souls to cross. No, I'm not being ironical, even Japanese tourist brochures can't quite decide to be grave and solemn, because the place is essentially a graveyard, or whether they should draw little smiling baby Jizos and "Let's Enjoy Gate of Hell" slogans, because hey, kids are cute and Jizo is kawaii! I can well imagine this place looking creepy in different weather, or even at night, but now it just smells eggy... to the extent that after a stay of few hours I started to feel vaguely sick and definitely do not want to see a boiled egg for at least a month.

青森県 むつ市 むつ旅館 
Mutsu Ryokan, Mutsu, Aomori-ken
Mon Oct 09 2000 19

I hitched a ride back with a pair of farmers from Yonezawa, who spoke little, and the little they did speak was in truly incomprehensible zuuzuuben (as Yamagata's ts-to-z dialect is affectionately called). Most of my rides have been tourists themselves and were able to rack their brains for at least a few Finnish things (aurora borealis, sauna, Nokia, xylitol, Mika Hakkinen, ice hockey, etc), with some -- like the Navy cadet earlier in the day -- seeming to know more about the country and the history of the Finnish people than I do. These two, however, had no clue. They had just paid a serious visit to an itako, and I figured that maybe idle chitchat wasn't the best of ideas right after visiting the spirits of your dead relatives... so after a vaguely uncomfortable 30 minutes I was glad to wave farewell.

Later it rained, hard, and I was glad I'd opted for the minshuku instead of roughing it out. And finally, my wishes for truly hot water were granted at Mutsu Ryokan, whose tiny metal bathtub had evidently been set on full boil. Only after running cold water into it for 5 minutes was I barely able to tolerate the heat: some parts of my legs are still red and my left ankle, abraded raw during a hike, complained very angrily for a while afterwards. Dinner was again an opulent display (sashimi, tempura...) and the obasan almost collapsed with relief when I filled out my address in kanji, happily chopsticked the raw squid (better than usual) and pondered the mysteries of the Yomiuri Shimbun and its news of Baraku's latest ultimatum to Arafatto.

What next? After my failure at Shakotan I've pretty much decided to forget about nuclear reactors. I've visited every place on my must-see itinerary and had lots of fun doing it, but my quota of natural wonders is pretty much full and I think I'll skip the detour to Toyako/Oirase Valley as well. That doesn't leave me much except souvenir shopping and the short hitch to Aomori or Hachinohe, from where I can take the expressway to Tokyo in one (long) day... I still want to visit a few onsen on Tohoku, and the idea of dropping in on Ryokan Eisen in Narugo is intriguing, albeit expensive. One appealing option would be staying in Shimokita and heading up to Yagen Onsen, but Kappa-no-yu is closed Tuesdays and after Wednesday the weather is evidently going to get worse again. Dou shiyou ka na...

And today's tip: never read travel brochures after visiting a place. Only now did I learn that the Aomori Card would've gotten 50% off the bus fare and that hidden inside the Osorezan temple is a free onsen!

青森県 薬研温泉 国設薬研野営所
Yagen Campground, Yagen Onsen, Aomori-ken
Tue Oct 10 2000 11:21

A curve in the Yagen River

Rapids

Autumn colors

Morning came without a cloud in the sky, I danced a ballet of bus transfers and set up camp near the entrance to the Yagen Valley, known for its hot springs -- the Kappa-no-yu, the "kappa" being a mythical humanoid frog-like creature -- and its autumn colors, although I'm about one week too early for that. It's T-shirt weather again and I'm on my way to the day's first hot spring, my only problem is that I need to find some place where I can buy dinner tonight: the only shop in the tiny hamlet of Yagen Onsen has its lights on but doors locked, and all I have with me for dinner & breakfast combined is two jam buns, a packet of instant noodles and a vitamin-packed drink by the Tokiwa Chemical Co., kindly donated by the ryokan's obasan.

青森県 奥薬研 かっぱの湯
Kappa-no-yu, Oku-Yagen, Aomori-ken
Tue Oct 10 2000 14:31

Kappa!

Kappa!

Kappa!

And now, ladies and gentlemen, I would like to announce that the quest is complete: the perfect mountain hot spring is Kappa-no-yu, in the Yagen Valley, Shimokita Peninsula, Aomori-ken, northern Honshu, Japan. I spent the morning strolling along the footpath beside the river, watching the water tumble and fall. About 2 km from the campground are the many pools of the Kappa-no-yu, I know of three but there are probably many more. The biggest operation is the Meoto Kappa-no-yu (夫婦かっぱの湯), a fairly standard (but hot and free!) rotenburo with separate sections for men and women, open only 8:30-18 and closed Tuesdays (except after a Monday holiday, like today!), with a resthouse selling essentials like beer next to it, and which you are free to use even if you don't buy anything.

Steam by the roadside

The source of the steam

and the river rushing past

Across the bridge is the original Kappa-no-yu, a simple rotenburo with great views over the 湯の又川, free, mixed, no clothing permitted and open 24 hours a day. This would already be tough enough to beat, but a few minutes down the road back towards the campground near Otomebashi (乙女橋), unnoted in any map and with a simple hiragana "ゆ" scrawled on a roadside post to hint at its existence, is an even better unnamed little spot. Two pools: one tiled, one bare rock with a dab of mortar; one warm, the other very hot (ie. perfect!); and an even better view over the river and the start of the cascading 大滝 (Ootaki, lit. "Big Waterfall"). I hereby dub it the Virgin Spring (乙女の湯), now all I need to do is come up with a few good legends.

By the way, I ate ramen noodles for lunch, udon noodles as a post-onsen snack, and spaghetti noodles for dinner. If I get hungry enough I'll eat my emergency instant noodles for breakfast too...

Chapter 7: Gone With the Rain >>