Nasushiobara

We drove about an hour north to the top of Tochigi to an area called Nasushiobara. Its a place that’s famous for a lot of hot springs. Most of the time there are buses full of tour groups crowding this area, but since there is not much travel right now, it was pretty vacant.

Our first stop was a waterfall near the top of the mountain called Oshiraji Falls. It was super misty (or as Nathan says, “mixsty”) up there and the hike was otherworldly. It felt like we were in some secret Japanese forest. Also this waterfall isn’t super famous so we only saw 2 other people while we were there.

Next we drove down the mountain into the town of Nasushiobara for lunch. We found a really awesome restaurant called “Restaurant Lamp”. It was raised overlooking the river and we got a seat right next to the window.

Outside the restaurant, along the river, we saw some wild monkeys! And one of them got pretty close to us. They were climbing on rooftops and all along the bridge.

There were a few other monkeys on the bridge too!

After that, we walked across the bridge to a temple and beautiful garden. The name of the temple is Myounji (妙雲寺), which I think translates as “Strange Cloud Temple”. It has a waterfall from the mountain flowing in the garden. The kids used the metal cups to purify their hands (or something like that). You can do this activity at many places around Japan and they are getting pretty good at it now.

Next we walked down the street to a cute little dessert shop called Suzu’s Forest.

This shop was a great find. It was super cute and we got to eat on the back terrace overlooking the river. It started raining while we were there, but the terrace was covered and it was cozy. We each had our dessert crepes and Heather and I had coffees. There was only one other customer there and we scared them off with our American-ness and got the whole terrace to ourselves the rest of the time.

After that we got back in the car and went to a nearby park. Again there was nobody there so the kids got the whole place to themselves. It was a really cool park overlooking the mountains, but since it was cloudy we couldn’t really see much.

There was also an old abandoned train ride for kids there. Nathan was able to play with the railroad crossing. One of Nathan’s favorite things to do at home is to make “ding, ding, ding” sounds with sticks, paper towel rolls, pencils, or anything that can represent a railroad crossing guard. So this was heaven for him. We asked him before bed what his favorite part of the day was and he answered, “it was the ding, ding, ding!”

Lastly, before going home, we decided to go to a foot hot spring. We can’t come to a place famous for hot springs and not go to a hot spring. The kids were well behaved even though Nathan dipped his butt in accidentally.

We made it home by about 7pm, got baths, and the kids crashed. They were pooped! It was a super successful day trip that felt like we went somewhere really far away.