Onsen Town Togura-Kamiyamada Audio Tour

If you’ve made it this far into the Togura-Kamiyamada Onsen audio tour, you’re probably ready for a break. Stop 30 is the perfect place. Shiokawa makes manju – those ubiquitous pastries filled with sweet adzuki bean paste that you’ll find in onsen areas throughout Japan. Shiokawa also makes apricot sundaes, featuring our area’s tangy apricots that go so nicely with the smoothness of vanilla ice cream.

Take your apricot sundae and walk a block south to the Kara-Koro Footbath. Your feet deserve a soak after that long tour. Indulge in the wonderfulness of the ice cream as your feet rejuvenate in the onsen water, and reflect on all the new memories you made here at onsen town, Togura-Kamiyamada.

Stop 29 on the Togura-Kamiyamada Onsen audio tour is a shop called Fashion House Beniya. It is a clothing store on Kamiyamada’s main street, run by Saito-san who we hear in the background. He’s the third generation owner of the shop and while he mostly carries regular Western-styled clothes he also has a selection of Wafuku – traditional Japanese clothes.

Most foreigners probably picture kimonos when they think of Wafuku, but that would be like saying tuxedos are the main type of clothing in the West. There is a wide variety of traditional Japanese clothing, everything from padded coats called hanten down to the fundoshi loin cloths. One thing all wafuku has in common, and something that differentiates it from Western clothing, is there are no buttons or zippers For example, the yukata robes that guests at the ryokans get are given to wear are wrapped around and held in place by a sash called an obi.

Beniya does sell yukata by the way so if you end up liking them from your ryokan you can purchase one to take home. Beniya also offers “1-Point Wafuku Lessons”. You can make an appointment to have Saito-san demonstrate the basics of traditional Japanese clothes. Participants can try on some and have their picture taken with Beniya’s fine formal Japanese garden and koi pond in the background.

2 blocks down Shin-sekai Dori aka the New World Road, to the west of Kamiyamada’s main street, is Stop 28, a tea shop called Kimijima-en. With over 30 hotels and inns in the onsen town, all serving tea to their guests, it’s no wonder Togura-Kamiyamada Onsen has tea stores.

While Kimijima-en also sells traditional Japanese tableware, they specialize in green tea and offer a wide variety including their own original blend.

The proprietor, Yasu Kimijima is a certified tea instructor. With prior arrangements, you can take a lesson on the finer points of pouring a delicious cup of Japanese green tea.

Two side streets coming off Chuo-dori, Kamiyamada’s main street, are Omoide-dori and Shinsekai-dori. Literally meaning “Memory Lane” and “New World Road”, these two avenues form the heart of the bar district. Here you will find literally over a hundred bars and drinking establishments. At night time, the bar girls will be out trying to entice people perusing the bar district to come in for karaoke and for some lively conversation.

Also in the bar district you will find 3 shateki stands, which are cork gun target shooting parlors. When spending the night at one of the ryokans in town, after dinner go for a stroll in your yukata robe and slip on a pair of wooden geta sandals. It’s fun to go clip-clopping around town and trying your hand at shateki. If you’re a good shot, you may pick up some extra souvenirs to take home.

Chuo-Dori is stop 26 on the Togura Kamiyamada Onsen audio tour. This road is the main street for Kamiyamada Onsen. It is lined with many of the main hotels and inns of the onsen town.

Sprinkled amongst the places of lodging are a handful of soba restaurants and unique shops, such as a stationery store featuring Showa-era toys and candy, and a stained glass shop that offers hands-on activities.

On the corner of Ginza-Dori and this main street is a convenience store with its own onsen footbath in front. Of the thousands of convenience stores in Japan, this is the only one with a footbath, just another sign that Togura-Kamiyamada is an onsen town.

Thanks to being located along the banks of the Chikuma River, Togura-Kamiyamada Onsen has a rich fishing heritage. At Shimaya, stop25 on the audio tour, they have been specializing in preserving river fish in a sweet marinate, a food called kanroni, for 3 generations.

From outside Shimaya, you can smell the sweet aroma of the fish stewing in the huge vats. Step into the store past the tanks of live fish to the tasting room where you can sample the kanroni.

Shimaya also makes bottles of uruka, a salty seasoning made with fish innards. Uruka is an acquired taste, but it goes oh so well with sake.

Nagano Prefecture is Japan’s largest producer of miso, and here in Togura-Kamiyamada, we are fortunate to have our own miso maker, Nakajima Miso, stop 24 on the audio tour.

Step inside Nakajima Miso’s store. There you can sample the various types of miso they make, from mild to heavy based on the rice and soybean ratio.

Also make sure to try the Shoyu Mame which is basically chunky soy sauce. They take soybeans on the way to becoming soy sauce and stop the process half-way through. Shoyu Mame is traditionally made only in the area that is within the sound of the bells of Zenkoji Temple in Nagano City.

With advance notice, you can have the owner, Nakajima-san, sit down with you and demonstrate the proper way to make miso soup. Nakajima-san is happy to share his enthusiasm for miso with the world, and his miso paste would make a great souvenir of your visit to Togura-Kamiyamada.

Stop 23 is the side street that connects Togura Onsen’s main road with that of Kamiyamada Onsen. This street used to be lined with all kinds of stores from a tabi sock shop to a clock store, making it the area’s main shopping street, hence it’s nickname, Ginza Dori. While not quite as fashionable as the Ginza in Tokyo, even today you will find a great selection of stores, such as our town’s miso-maker and a kanron marinated fish shop. We’ll be stopping at those places next.

Sasaya Hotel is the 22nd stop on the Togura-Kamiyamada Onsen Audio Tour. This grand ryokan is the most historical of all the inns in town. The wisteria tree in the entrance is over 100 years old. In the center of the hotel complex is a guesthouse building called Hohnen-Mushi. Built in 1932, it is a on Japan’s national historical registry. It was designed by Endo Arata, a protege of Frank Lloyd Wright. Free tours of Hohnen-Mushi are offered daily.

Stop 21 is the main street of Togura Onsen. The onsen town Togura-Kamiyamada is actually made up of 3 separate onsens – Kamiyamada which is just to the west, Togura centered on this road, and Shin-, or New- Togura on the other side of the river, The three of them are collectively known and marketed as Togura-Kamiyamada Onsen.

While Kamiyamada has a larger number of inns and hotels, Togura is technically the oldest of the three. Our next stop will be the most historical of all the inns, Sasaya Hotel.

This is probably a good time to explain more about what the word “onsen” means. Usually it’s translated into English as hot spring, referring to the mineral waters. People in Japan also call a hot spring bath an onsen, as in, “I just came out of the onsen and feel so relaxed!” In a broader sense, onsen can also mean a hot spring resort town. For example, “We are going for a drive this weekend to spend the night at an onsen.”

We like to think Togura-Kamiyamada isn’t just any onsen town, it is The Onsen Town!