My bf and I are currently traveling Japan with the 21 day JR pass. Our initial plan was to take the train to Yuzawa today for 2 nights, to ski at one of the resorts.
Unfortunately with the warmer weather this year, the hill conditions from what we hear are much worse than the previous years, it’s going to be golden week (so lots of crowds), and the place we wanted to get rentals and transportation from closed down.
There’s nothing to do in Yuzawa apart from the skiing so does anyone have recommendations on a doable day trip from there? We are thinking of taking the Shinkansen to Tokyo for DisneySea or maybe a baseball game, watching Sumo wrestling possibly? Any other location or activity would also be cool to do. If anyone has any ideas, it would be greatly appreciated!
2 comments
It’s a lil bit away but you could go down to the Kiso valley and walk the nakasendo from tsumago to magome or vice versa , you could say drip to Nikko nearby and go to Edo wonderland ?
I spent a few days in Echigo Yuzawa a few weeks ago. Even then the snow at Kandatsu was terrible, not fun to ski. If you are fans of literature, specifically Kawabata Yasunari’s Snow Country, the novel is set in Yuzawa. You can go check it out, there is a monument in the playground at the center of town, and a museum with artifacts. Kawabata stayed in Takahan ryokan and they have an exhibit but it seems like it’s only for guests these days unfortunately. Artemodo is a nice cafe/design company with very nice interior design and decor if you’re into that. For bars I can recommend swing bar and cab9. Komako no yu is a nice onsen named after one of the main characters and they have a little exhibit about the movie there. If you haven’t read the book you could read it before you get there, it’s on the shorter side. Kiyotsu gorge is a famous view (look it up, really nice pictures), you can take the bus there but it only comes and goes a few times a day, so plan ahead.
As a day trip I can recommend Minamiuonuma, rent a bike near the station and go to Uonuma no Sato, a sake brewery with a lot of interesting history and tasting options and bakeries. Make sure to check out the snowbank tour, it’s an enormous building full of snow used to keep sake cool before refrigeration and it’s still used today. On the way to Uonuma no Sato there’s a nice park Zenibuchi, and a famous shrine Raiden-sama where you can drink the fresh spring water, people even bring large containers to take the water back home. Next you can bike to the trailhead Mt Rokumanji and climb to the top where the flowers should be in full bloom right now, plus maybe some late blooming Sakura varieties still. Beautiful view of surrounding mountains as well. I recommend Ever lasting bar if you are at all into whisky or absinthe, the owner knows what he’s doing.
Finally this is a bit niche but you can go to Ojiya. One of the motifs in Snow Country is a fabric called chijimi which is made by bleaching hemp cloth on top of snow outside when it’s sunny in March. It’s kind of like linen but very expensive. You can go check out a store/factory called Iono near the station. While you’re there there’s a chijimi exhibit near the town center called Sun plaza, and right next to it is an amazing koi fish museum where you can learn about how different koi are bred. There’s a giant pond with hundreds of different koi and a nice park outside. I recommend checking out the disaster museum as well, it’s about a devastating earthquake a few decades ago and the subsequent rescue operations and disaster preparedness. They have an earthquake simulator where your seat moves rapidly and it’s pretty scary. In Ojiya or Minamiuonuma make sure to eat hegi soba.