tsuwano-yamaguchi-osaka

On Sunday, we awoke to the whole town covered in snow. As one of my Flickr friends said, "Looks like a toy village with powdered sugar poured on it." Sure did.

There were many other sights to be seen in Tsuwano but either they were out of the way or closed due to the snow.

Since we had some time before the train ride back to Yamaguchi, Satoshi thought we should kill some time at a museum in town but I didn't want to get my shoes & socks wet like the days before, so I convinced him that with the weather the way it was, we should try to get back to Osaka as soon as possible.

I also convinced him that we should take a taxi from our hotel to the station. It was a good call too because the roads were packed with snow.

As we rode in the taxi, we saw many people shoveling again and the driver explained that most of the trains weren't running the day before.

Here's a view of a train heading towards Tsuwano, somewhere under all that snow is the platform.

We fell asleep along the way, but I think it took us about an hour and a half from Tsuwano to Shin-Yamaguchi.

Since we had some time before our Shinkansen (bullet train) back to Osaka, we stopped into Santouka for lunch.

I had seen this place on our way to Hagi and thought it was the ramen place that I see Kirk & Dennis talk about on their blogs, but it wasn't.

A little bummed but still hungry, I decided to go with the Santouka Go-Go Don...550 yen (about US$5.50), this was a chicken katsu don. Usually you can find tonkatsu (pork cutlet) don, but chicken katsu is kind of rare.

I liked this but there was too much rice for me to finish it.

Satoshi went with the Curry de U-don...670 yen (about US$6.70).

This starts with rice at the bottom, a layer of grated yamaimo (mountain yam), a layer of udon then it is covered with lots of curry.

He said it was good but wouldn't rush back to eat it again, I didn't taste it, so I guess it was just okay.

We also found a local cider, Choshu Ji-cider.

Fizzy and flavored with natsumikan (chinese citron). This was good.

With all the cold and wetness, Satoshi's shoes gave out on him. The picture doesn't do it justice it was goners!

It was cold and wet but I got to see snow, lots of it (though I was afraid we may get frost bite).

I'm glad we went to Hagi and Tsuwano and wouldn't mind going back again, hope you enjoyed our adventure as much as we did.

hagi-tsuwano

The weather on Saturday was forecast to be awful and, it was.

Blustery, rain, snow. Still, we had more to see in Hagi. We had wanted to go by bicycle but the hotel staff convinced us that it was too windy.

So instead we borrowed two of their umbrellas...and went exploring.

The wind was so strong and then there was sleet, I'm sure the locals who saw us thought, "stupid tourists".

Have you ever seen someone walking in bad weather and their umbrella flips up the other way?? That was me. I swear it felt like we were in the middle of a typhoon or hurricane that day, it was THAT windy and rainy.

Our first stop was the Hagi castle ruins, which we looked at from a distance. We also peeped inside of the Hagi pottery museum which wasn't open yet.

There is an area in Hagi with walls called kaimagari, they are built high on both sides to protect against enemy attacks and the corners are angled...neat!

Inside of the Kubota residence there was a beautiful hina-ningyo (Girl's Day Doll) display.

In fact, a lot of these residences were showcasing their dolls.

At this point we were sopping wet and very cold. The volunteers in the Kubota residence kindly let us stand in front of their heaters (thank you!).

We then popped next door to Seiseian to have some matcha with sweets...500 yen (about US$5)

We were still sopping wet but it was nice to get out of the sleet.

After warming up a bit, we ran across the street to the Kikuya residence and looked at their dolls and interior.

The wooden decks around the house were quite interesting...the original deck is made of keyaki (zelkova) and are only meant for samurai and honored guests, so when lower classes were around, these decks were covered with sugi (cedar) boards.

The area called Kikuya Lane, next to the Kikuya residence looks like you've slipped back into time.

Despite the blustery wind and sleet, we saw quite a bit and unfortunately ruined the two umbrellas we borrowed from the hotel (sorry!).

After changing our socks and taking out some of the moisture from our shoes with some newspaper, we took a bus from Hagi to Tsuwano. It takes about 2 hours through the mountains and this was a slightly scary ride.

Everything was white and the roads a bit slick as we crawled along the roads.

At one point, the bus driver stopped to talk to another driver about the road conditions.

I'm glad we made it safely. Tsuwano had had a lot of snow overnight and when we got there, it was still snowing off and on.

Since we couldn't check-in, we decided to look for lunch and stopped into Tsurube.

I had their curry udon & Satoshi had their sansai (mountain greens) udon with 2 musubi.

The udon surely hit the spot though our feet felt quite frozen.

Even after eating, we still had some time before check-in, so we decided to check out some of the sights.

The Tsuwano Christian church had no pews, just tatami mats. I didn't go inside because I didn't want to take off my shoes, especially since my socks were wet and feet were cold.

As we walked about, many of the residents and shop owners were shoveling their store and home fronts and were chatting with each other.

One told us to check out the koi (carp) at the rice shop, Koi no Komeya.

The carp are located in their garden pond, just tell the owner you are there to see them. Boy, did they have a lot of carp!

It was interesting to watch people shovel.

There are grates on the side of the road which they open up and push all the snow from their store/home fronts into.

The snow then runs into the waterway running underneath.

Near our hotel was a sweet shop called Sanshodo Kashinan, there we picked up some sweets including Tsuwano's famous item, Genji maki, a sweet bean paste wrapped with a thin piece of cake...delicious.

After warming up in the furo (bath), dinner was kaiseki-style and we had all sorts of dishes including this kasago (scorpionfish) which was simmered in shoyu, mirin and sake.

To tell you the truth, having a whole fish like this intimidates me, I don't know how to eat it "nicely" and tend to freak out with all the bones. But, I did my best to eat as much as I could, though I did give Satoshi a little of it to "clean-up".

Another long day and another long post.

You can also see a really short video I took while riding the bus to Tsuwano.

Seiseian
1-27 Gofukumachi
Hagi, Yamaguchi
Phone: 0838.22.3929
Days off not set

Tsurube
384-1 Ushiroda
Tsuwano, Shimane
Phone: 0856.72.2098

Sanshodo (Kashinan)
197 Ushiroda
Tsuwano, Shimane
Phone: 0856.72.3225

we're back

We're back from Hagi & Tsuwano.

Lots of pictures to sort through, and lots to tell.

Hope to get something up soon and catch up on my favorite blogs.

To tied you over, I wanted to show you all the snow we got to experience. It really reminded us of being in Hokkaido.

Happy Valentine's to everyone!