Kinugawa Onsen Tour (Part 2) / 鬼怒川温泉旅行 （パート２）

Our train that will take us to Kinugawa Onsen.

鬼怒川温泉行きの電車。

My friends, Yukio and Reiko.

友達の幸男とレイコ。

Just so you know where I'm going.

僕が何処に行くかを確認してみて。

On all my travels, I usually start off with having a beer - Cheers.

僕は旅に出かける時は必ずビールから始まります‐乾杯。

Any long train journey in Japan gives you an excuse to eat ekiben (translates to station bento). But today, I had bought Hoe pork bowl to go from Hanabatade Bokujo Cafe.

長い電車の旅の一つの楽しみは駅弁ですね。でも、今日は花畑牧場カフェでホエー豚丼。

Ooh, yummy!

お～う、美味しい！

Oh, I made a slight fib on my previous post. Our train left Shinjuku around 1pm. We were scheduled to reach Kinugawa around 3pm.

あっ。前のポストに間違った、今日の電車は一時位に出発。鬼怒川着は午後三時位。

Here we are at Kinugawa Onsen Station.

鬼怒川温泉駅到着。

Leaving the station, we were greeted by Kinuta. Why an ogre? Short kanji lesson. Kinugawa is made up of three characters - 鬼 (oni / ogre), 怒 (ikari / ire), and 川 (kawa / river). Put together it reads Kinugawa. Translating into English would make it "angry ogre river". Translating it directly would make it "Ogre Angry River", whatever, you get the idea.

駅を出たら、お出向かいしてくれた鬼の鬼怒太です。

Can you tell that we are at Hot Spring Resort area?

温泉郷に居るのを分かりますか？

Another great thing about hot spring resorts? There's usually a foot bath near the station.

温泉郷にだいたいある物と言えば？そう、駅前の足湯。

Since you can't see our feet in this picture, check out the one below. This foot bath is called "Kinuta no Yu".

この写真じゃ足が見えないので、次をご覧下さい。ここの足湯は「鬼怒太の湯」です。

After soaking our feet, I went to check out the big ogre lying down by the station.

足湯を楽しんだあと、でっかい鬼を会いに行った。

A view of the foot bath [Kinuta no Yu].

鬼怒太の湯。

Before heading to our hotel, we stopped in at the Tourist Information Center to see what other activities there were to partake in aside from enjoying the hot springs. We were giving a pamphlet which had a map of the Kinugawa Hot Spring Resort. There are seven bridges along the Kinugawa River and the pamphlet has spaces for stamps of each of the bridge. If you finish the stamp rally, you can take the pamphlet back to the Tourist Center and receive a good luck charm. One stamp is already provided. We decided we would hit a couple of the bridges on our way to our hotel. Check in and then check out two more. The following day we would check out the last two bridges to complete our short pilgrimage.

ホテルに行く前に最初に訪れたところは鬼怒川温泉情報センター。温泉以外の楽しみを把握為です。鬼怒川に七の橋があるとゆうことで、七橋めぐりが楽しめます。渡されたパンフレットに「七福邪鬼めぐり」スタンプラリーがあると聞いて、全部のスタンプに押せば、また情報センターに行って「邪気払いお守り」が貰えます。早速「七福邪鬼めぐり」に挑戦することにした。ホテルに着く前に二つの橋に行って。そのあと、チェックインして。また二つの橋に行ってみる。翌日に最後の二つの橋に行けば、スタンプラリー達成。

As we were walking towards our first bridge, we were given onsen manju by a man who ran a little gift shop.

最初の橋に向かう途中、一人のおじさんが私たちに温泉まんじゅをくれた。

Also on our way to our first bridge, I came across a monument called the [Yudokoro no Hito].

最初の橋に行く途中、「湯泉の妻 （ゆどころのひと）」と出会った。

To be continued...

つづく。。。