p0nderosa: Japan Again! - Okuhida Onsengo - Oct 09

Okuhida Onsengo

Today we headed from Shirakawago back to Takayama, picked up a car and drove to Okuhida Onsengo. Okuhida Osengo is a collection of villages within the Takayama region which is renowned for their outdoor hot springs with beautiful views of the surrounding mountains. We had a reservation at Mazda for a car hire through Toocoo which is very easy to use.

Tocoo Car Rental

The car rental place was only about 200m from the Takayama train station so it was very easy to find and after handing over our international drivers permit and filling in some paperwork we were ready to go. We had already booked our accommodation for the next two nights in Okuhida and had the ryokans phone number which was handy as all you have to do is type it into the cars GPS system and it will direct you there.

The drive was only about 45 minutes, and you pretty much only have to follow one road before making the turn before Abo Tunnel and then its only about 10 minutes before you reach Okuhida.

Scenery on the drive to Okuhida

First of all we decided to find some food but it can be quite hard here. Okuhida Onsen is quite off the beaten track for the foreign tourist, there is hardly any english information available and although it is such a small area it can be very hard to find the most simple things. I really doubt there are any atms in this area as well, so best to take cash with you. We found a supermarket with a small selection of snacks and bought a few things and sat by the river to eat. On our way back up the road we saw quite a large bus terminal which had a few stalls and those excellent Hida Beef Buns.

It was nearing 2.00 which was check in time so we headed to our first ryokan in Okuhida - Yumoto Chouza.

http://cyouza.sakura.ne.jp/top.html

Yumoto Chouza is located in the Fukuchi Onsen area of Okuhida. It is a traditional high end ryokan and the most expensive of this trip. It took us awhile to locate, and even longer to find out where we could park. Giving up, we drove down the narrow driveway to ask the staff - a young man came out and after we asked where we could park, he motioned to us to follow him. We offered to him to sit in the car and direct, but he refused and started to run off down the road. We started to drive after him and as we drove he kept looking back at us, nodding and motioning the way while running alongside the car. For some reason we found this hilarious, it reminded us of a scene of Dwight's brother in The Office, just a very strange situation!

Ended up that the car park wasn't really that far, just down an incline from the ryokan. Before we had even reached there and parked, there were already two women from the ryokan waiting for us, ready to take our luggage and show us where to go. They directed us up a cute mossy stone pathway which went past some of their outdoor onsen and into their reception area.

The staff here are incredible. I have never had any staff in Japan that are not incredible, but somehow the Yumoto staff were exceptional. We sat in reception while they got our things ready, and they served us some green tea. We were then taken to our rooms which were quite big; dining/bedroom, reading room, irori room & bathroom. The woman who had shown us the room then sat down to explain to us the ryokan and onsen. First of all there were the indoor onsen. There are the usual public mens & public womens onsen. Then there are four private onsen which can be accessed with your room key. Then there are men & womens outdoor onsen across the road situated right alongside a river which you can also access with your key. THEN to make things even more complicated (complicated because how are we going to fit all this into one day!) the ryokans of the area have an onsen sharing system. You are allowed to use any other ryokans onsen in allocated timeslots. This all seemed amazing but almost too much because as much as we love onsen, we knew our bodies wouldn't cope with all this hot water we were going to force them to sit in.