As per my usual MO, I arrived in Tagori-Nozawaonsen
Station with no more information than a hotel name and a general notion that it
would require a bus and a taxi to get there.
I asked the Japan Rail station attendant if it would be possible to just take a taxi
from the station to the inn where I was booked, and he said yes—for 3000
yen. Yikes,
I thought, but I figured I’d just eat it since I’d already paid for the room
and was going to have to take a taxi part of the way anyway.
I was gathering all my stuff together when this older gentleman
turned to me and asked in pretty good English where I was going. I showed him on the map that the JR attendant
had given me, and said I was going to take a taxi.
“3000 yen is very expensive!” he exclaimed, his eyes wide in
disbelief. I agreed wholeheartedly.
“How about you go with us and split the fare?” It was then that I noticed he was with his
wife and a younger woman, probably his daughter. “Sure!” I said.
“Okay—we three in back seat; you in front,” he clarified.
“Works for me!” I said.
On the way up to town, the old man had a lengthy exchange
with the driver—they could have been talking about baseball for all I knew—then
he tells me in English: “I just told our driver that this is most
inconvenient.” I agreed out of
politeness, and told him how convenient the onsen is to the train station in
Aso.
“Ah, Aso-san!” all three said from the back seat. They are from Tokyo, and had just come up to
Nozawa Onsen for a day trip to the hot springs, which are extremely popular in
this Olympic ski town located in the mountains of northern Nagano
Prefecture. Combine Glenwood Springs
with Breckenridge, scatter several Olympic venues around, then surround it all with
a dense green mix of evergreen and deciduous trees instead of the Rocky
Mountains, and you’ll have a pretty good picture of Nozawa Onsen. We parted company at the Kawamotoya inn,
formal thank-yous exchanged all around.
I am confident they had a lovely time in one of the many onsen near the
inn, while I, on the other hand, had a great hike up to the local Buddhist
shrine, perched high on the side of one of the several mountains looming over town.
That night I had dinner at a small family restaurant called
Atarashiya. As I sat for a moment after
a very tasty meal of chicken, rice, and eggplant, the young waitress in jeans
and a blue “Fitch 1892” t-shirt slid the glass backdoor open, stepped lightly
across the open water channel and through the herbal bonsai grove, then out to a
low-hanging tree branch, where she proceeded to carefully select and pick a
number of leaves. When she came back in,
I asked her what she had picked. She showed me the small, pinnate
leaves in her hand; then she clapped her
palms together to activate the flavonoids and held her hand out for me to
smell. I closed my eyes, inhaled deeply,
and was swept away by a minty-rosemary scent that was just heavenly. She then took the herbs straight into the
kitchen and worked them into whatever she was cooking. No wonder the meal was so tasty!
The following day I had hoped to see the Japanese macaques, or snow monkeys, for which the
area is famous, but I soon learned that in the summer they stay very high in Jigokudani Yaenkoen park, which is quite far away. Only in wintertime do they come down to visit the natural hot springs of Nozawa
Onsen. Wow, that’s too bad, I thought
as I strode off to ride the gondola to the top of the mountain for a really
nice walk on the top of the world. It
would be cool to see the Fire Dance Festival on January 15th too…
Hey, wait a second … I get January off!
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