The next day Cormac and I woke up, ate breakfast and were back on the road. Our loose goal for this day was to make it to Ouchijuku, a stop along the famous Tokaido road. But we had the same attitude as the day before, it was a goal, but it wasn’t important if we actually made it there, only about what we saw along the way.
This time we drove west from Fukushima city to the Bandai Skyline road. It takes you up to the top of the mountain range where you can experience a wonderful view. On the way there are some onsen and foot baths dotted along the road. We drove on, and the snow got deeper and deeper the higher we climbed. We came upon one of the small villages with the onsen and foot baths. I parked my car in the parking lot of an onsen and wanted to check out one of the foot baths nearby. There was a man directing traffic in and out of the parking lot, so I thought he would be able to tell me exactly where the foot bath was. When I asked him he said “There is no foot bath.” I was confused, because I knew there was one nearby. So I pulled out my phone and brought up a picture of it, and asked again where it was. Where he repeated “Yeah, that, it’s not a foot bath.” At this point I figured there was something lost in translation so I excused myself and set off to find it on my own.
I didn’t need to look far, it was only about fifty feet from where I parked, and it was in full view of the traffic director. I was super confused at this point, but we walked around the foot bath and put our hands in to test the temperature. It wasn’t very warm, so we decided to skip spending time here. On the way back to the car we saw two different signs next to the foot bath. One said “This is not a foot bath”, and another said “Please enjoy the foot bath.” So, I guess both the traffic director and I were both right, and wrong.
We continued up the mountain again to see the rest of the skyline, but soon after the onsen the road was blocked, and would not be open again for another few weeks. So we went back the way we came and drove down towards Aizuwakamatsu.
Next we came upon Lake Inawashiro. It is the second biggest lake in Japan, and the biggest in Fukushima. We drove past and parked at a place where they had ferries going out. The ferries look like a big swan and a big turtle. We could have gone out on a ride, but I was content to stay on the beach next to the parking lot and watch the ducks.
They were so pretty and had so many colors. There was a family nearby who was feeding them pieces of bread. Cormac told me that he had ducks when he grew up in Ireland. He loves ducks, and I could tell he was happy to watch them with me.
We were getting hungry after this so we decided to stop for food in Aizuwakamatsu. But for some reason, most every restaurant we passed by was closed. It was Sunday afternoon, so I didn’t quite understand
But we were able to stop at a combini and grab something quick, so we could be on our way once more.
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| Aizuwakamatsu manhole cover. |
After we continued south where we saw another nice shrine. It was far from the road and tucked back in the tree line and up a hill.
We walked through the torii gate and up the stone steps into the forest.
It was dark and this shrine looked abandoned.
There were quite a few smaller stone shrines and lanterns, but they were all toppled and broken.
There were a few unbroken stone shrines dotted around as well.
There was another shrine nearby but it was all closed up. When I opened the doors to peek inside there was a small shinto altar and a cloth rope with a bell up top. I quickly closed the door, though, because there was a gross black mold covering a lot of what was inside.
From here we turned around and made our way back to the car.
By this point we knew we were not going to make it to Ouchijuku, and decided to head back towards the direction we came. I wanted to see the big bridge and onsen town we had passed the day before, so that’s where we decided to end the day.
We parked our car and walked over to the bridge. The area is called Ashinomakionsen, it is south of Aizuwakamatsu on the Aga River, but the area with this bridge is even further south than the town central.
We walked across the bridge and took pictures of the river below. There are a lot of onsen hotels lining the cliffs above the river, and they look pretty cool. As we stood there talking and looking at the river and the mountains all coming together in a beautiful panorama, we dropped rocks from the bridge into the river. It was such a simple thing, but it’s pretty fun.
After that we walked over to the hill above the tunnel that cuts through the mountain before the bridge, at the top is a small foot bath that draws water from an onsen under the ground. The water was wicked hot and I couldn’t put my feet in for a few minutes. But I soon realized that I just had to dunk my feet in the water and not move them until my feet had acclimated. It was so hot! After a few minutes I was fine and we sat and talked for about a half hour in the foot bath watching the traffic pass by below through the tunnel and over the bridge. It was such a wonderful and relaxing time. When we got out our feet were a bright pink!
The sun was setting so we walked back towards the car where there was a temple up on a hill, we climbed the hill to go check it out. The path split towards the bottom. On one side it went up to a little 1-room onsen. The onsen was for one sex at a time only, and it switched what sex was allowed in the onsen for alternating hours. Ladies could be in from 5pm to 6pm, and then it would switch to men from 6pm to 7pm, and continued all day like that. Nobody was there at the time, so I went in and took a picture. It had a lovely view of the river, mountains and onsen hotels.
The other path went up to the Buddhist temple. We first passed a tall Kannon statue and a smaller shrine/altar along the path.
It had dozens of Buddha and Kannon-sama statues lining the path. The statues had little hats knitted for them to wear.
When you got to the top there was a big bell, and Cormac rang it because he wanted to.
There was also a small temple at the end that had three Buddha statues inside it, it was getting really dark so it was hard to see, but you can a bit.
After this I drove Cormac back to Fukushima City. It was completely dark so the scenery wasn’t much to talk about, but the conversation was pleasant. From there I drove back to Minamisoma.
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