Masa’s Onsen (Hot Spring) Short Story Vol.2

It situated in the northwestern part of Tokyo, and it takes about three hours by car or by Shinkansen (bullet train) from Tokyo, Tsubame Onsen (Hot Spring) in Myoko highland of Niigata prefecture is now at the height of the fall foliage. There are eight small Onsen Ryokans (Japanese inns with hot spring) scattered on the either side of several tens of meters steep hill on the mountainsides of 1,100 meters high.

    Tsubame  Onsen is a famous place as a colony of martin, and “Tsubame” is a martin (a kind of swallow) in Japanese. When I were there, I saw nests of  martins lined along the eaves. As martins has already grown and left the nests, all of the nests were empty at that time.

    The hot spring was sulfur bath with milky white colour. At the edge of the town (in the middle of above photo) there is free of charge outdoor hot spring along the mountain stream.  It was full of visitors who came here to enjoy the colourful autumn leaves.

      Yes, now is the best time for the autumn leaves. The outdoor hot spring will be closed during winter.

    MASA

Masa’s Onsen (Hot Spring) Short Story Vol.1

I Recently visited  Houshi Onsen in Gunma Prefecture, two hours away from  central Tokyo by car. This was the view I enjoyed from my room, pictureque main building of this Onsen Ryokan and beyond the river is the roof of the new annex ward. Shortly after breakfast in my room, it seemed that I had happily fallen back to sleep.

I have known the father and the son who are the owners of this Onsen Ryokan for long time, and we had a pleasant time over quite a bit of nice Sake the  night before. That’s why I remembered only half of what we had talked about, even though we had  a lot of  “fruitful” discussions. Too bad I can’t  share this with you here…

Cheers, that’s all for now.

Masa

Cycle Mode – Cycle show in Tokyo

I went to Makuhari in Chiba prefecture with Masa to see ‘Cycle Mode’ - the exibition for all kinds of bicycles. More than 400 brands, 1,700 bikes can be showed and also we can try to ride on some of the bikes.

Because of surge of the fuel price and people’s health conscious, this event is also becoming bigger in size.  Shimano had one of the bigest booth to show their product and service.

In the near future I hope we can make a presentation in this event !??

Masa & Yukiko @ Makuhari, Chiba     20C  Cloudy

Wedding party

 After today’s tour, Masa, Carlos and I attended our friend’s wedding party in Ginza. It was so —– nice party, as we could enjoyed a lot of live music performed by several music bands. And all members of the bands are friends of the bridal couple. Actually the bride is a member of Samba bateria and the gloom is a member of Okinawa Sanshin guiter band. So today’s performances are for both of them and at the end of the party there was the collaboration music with Brazilian Samba and Okinawa Sanshin guiter, it was fantastic !!

Okinawa Sanshin Band

Winter duck @ Imperial palace moat

 

 

Winter duck has just arrived from Siberia. In this season, the first group have arrived at moat of Imperial Palace.
I’m very glad to see them again! They don’t care of the ‘Stokkshock’ of Japan. No passing.
And despite of global warming.they choosed here for their destination. Thank you, ducks !

That’s it for today…

Masa @ Imperial Palace Tokyo    20C   Sunny

Holiday cycling with my daughter Akane

Hello, I’m Masa. One of the Tokyo Great Cycling Tour staff.

Look at this photo. Isn’t it nice ?!!  It is very nice weather today, so I went cycling with my 1-year-old sweet daughter Akane using iBert  which is also used in our cycling tour.

 It seems she likes cycling very much. Keep smilig when I pedal. Maybe it made her so excited, on the way back to my house, she fell complete asleep on iBert.  Sleeping Akane is also very very pretty…  Please do not tell I’m a doting father, I originally am a very strict traditional Japanese father !

( @Ochiai, Shinjuku-ku near my house    Sunny,  27C )

Masa