Fun things to do in Akita-ken

April 2007
Tsurunoyu Onsen Hot Spring
I have the experience of lunching at the old Inn. Food was served around the sunken hearth, with the cooking pot hanging from a bamboo pole from the ceiling. Fish was skewered and places around the hearth.
There was snow on the ground, and surrounded all the outdoor onsen, rotenburo.

Tsurunoyu is popular as a secret spot among the hot spring spas in the Tazawa Kogen Plateau. This is an unpretentious wonderful hot spring, it's called a 'hitou', a 'hidden' natural hot spring. The spring emerges from a gulch in the hills. It looked small.
In the middle of the compound, a stream runs down the hillside and alongside a shallow, oblong pool of hot, ice-milky blue water, hot water bubbles up from the ground, where people are able to soak for hours.
This original 300-year-old mountain lodge is flanked by a handful of low thatch-and-wood structures added over the decades, all backed by a sheer, massive wall of coniferous green.

I visited this onsen again in August 2008. This time I actually dipped in all the different four pools, including the mixed sexes. The men gave up the pool to all five of us ladies, two minutes later after we enter the pool. The temperature varied from pool to pool. In one of the indoor pool, there is a drinking fountain.

At the entrance to the little kiosk, there is a well sign-posted spring water fountain, the shallow pool is filled with all the cans and bottle drinks, indicating it is a natural refrigerator, and the water is actually very cold and 'sweet' to drink !

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Namahage, played by young men in domenic masks and traditional straw garments, make the rounds of houses in their village. They burst into these houses searching for new community members like young wives and children.
Other household members "protect" their relatives, assuring the Namahage that they are good people. The Namahage are then placated with a little sake and some food.
The history and mystery of Namahage are elucidated in the Namahage Museum. Although it's originally performed only on New Year's Eve, the Oga Shinzan Folklore Museum puts on the performance seven times each day.

Admission fee 500 yen.

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Oga-hanto Peninsula, in the western part of Akita, just out into the Sea of Japan in the shape of an ax. Oga Quasi-national Park boasts spectacular coastal scenery, featuring strange rocks carved out by the rough waves of Japan Sea.

It is free of charge.

In Happo Town, on the 1st August.
Young town people wearing white costumes, carrying a portable shrine over their shoulders, and parade through the Hachimori district.
Then, they go into the basin of the water fall at the Shirataki Shrine.

From the end of July, to the mid-August.
Thousands of sunflowers bloom spectacularly in the four hectare wide field, next to the roadside station of Nishime, Yurihonjo city.
Events include sunflowers maze and stamp Rally.

In the month 20th August
At Ugo town, town folks praying for good harvest and prosperity for the village, and protection from harmful insects.
At the riverside, participants wrap straws around two trees cut from the mountain, called Jijieko & Babaeko, and light them on fire.

This all communities gathering, occurs during the last Saturday of the month of July, at the community Baseball ground. Local participation of school children dancing to the American Raps, Taiko drums, Hot air ballooning and entertainment of Japanese famous singers and performers, Hawaiian dancers and firework display finale etc.

X awaiting photograph from my Japanese language teacher - Fujiko sensei, Mrs. Takahasi. arigato gozaimas.

celebrated on the September 7- 9

Oyama musical accompanists on 18 festival floats play the music.
Akita Obako Women perform "Teodori Dancing," which involves many dancers moving in unison and making the same hand gestures as each other