It was a beautiful day, so my neighbour Miyako and I headed for Yuzawa city, in the south-east of Akita prefecture, to visit one of the many famous onsens in the area.
On the way we stopped in yakimitsunashi (焼肉みつなし), an amazing yakiniku restaurant in Mitsunashi town (三梨町). This restaurant has a famous local beef that we cooked ourselves on the korean style stove in our table.
After lunch we continued for another while along the country roads, with the cherry blossoms still in bloom, before finally arriving at Tarobee Onsen (多郎兵衛).
I usually like to take a long time in onsens, maybe an hour or sometimes even a little more. Usually the people I go with don't want to stay for that long. So I was surprised when my friend, just before enter the female section, said that she'd meet me outside after 2.5 hours!
On entering the onsen I was a little disappointed because there appeared to only be the one bath, and no rotemburo (an outdoor onsen). There were two men present when I entered and both departed after about 5 minutes of being there, I like to think it wasn't because I entered! Surprisingly no one else came into the onsen while I was there.
After about an hour of bathing and relaxing I heard my friend call from over the wall of the female section who just found out that there were more onsens and a rotemburo! So I got dressed and headed to the other baths. After 2 hours of onsen hopping I think I can safely say that I have never been as clean as I was that day!
Five minutes down the road was another interesting spot, Oyasukyo Daifundō (小安峡大噴湯). After parking the car we descended a lot of steps into a deep valley with waterfalls on both sides. A path beside the river passes by a constantly steaming geyser, with 98°C water pouring out.
We tried to head to another famous area, Kawarage Ōyutaki (川原毛大湯滝), but the roads were still closed due to snow until the end of May. We did get to see some very cool areas on the way though and a very beautiful sunset.
We stopped in an okonomiyaki restaurant on the way back too, Dohtonbori (道とん堀). It wasn't intentional that both restaurants we went today were ones that we had to cook for ourselves!
Thank you very much emperor Shōwa.
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