The best and worst onsens/sentos in Joetsu: An incomplete list

There are really only two things in Japan that I think are better than anything comparable back home: public baths and ramen. I've given myself the go-ahead to spend as much time and money (and in the case of ramen, calories) as I want to on these two things, and I try to eat ramen and go to an onsen at least once a week, because I know I'll miss both when I go home.

Anyway, this is a list of the onsens I've been to in Joetsu. I'm hoping to branch out and try a lot more--I think Yukidaruma Onsen in Yasuzuka is next on my list, and I really want to go to the Oedo Onsen Monogatari onsen theme park in Tokyo! So expect a Part 2 soon :)

1. Shichifuku no Yu (Super Sento)
Also known as "the onsen by AEON/JUSCO," this is by far my favorite sento in Joetsu. My friend Vincent said that it reminded him of Spirited Away, which is probably the best way to describe it. It has literally everything: indoor and outdoor baths, a sauna (with TV), a steam room (it's lavender-scented!), jets, a cold bath for after the sauna, crazy electric current massage baths, an outdoor TV, individual baths (one for each lucky god), and a bath with mysterious* healing powers that all the old ladies crowd into when there's plenty of room in the other baths. There's also decent food and nice rooms where you can chill and relax after your bath.

*mysterious for those cursed with poor Japanese reading comprehension, anyway

2. Kuwadori Yuttarimura
This onsen is in Kuwadori, a rural area near one of my schools, but I'd never bothered to check it out until recently. It. Is. Amazing. The building is beautiful and new-looking and smells great (I know that's a weird observation but it's true), and the baths themselves are small, but really nice. There's an indoor and outdoor bath (the indoor one has jets and seats where you can lie back) and a small steam room. I haven't tried the restaurant yet, but something tells me it's a cut above the regular onsen fare.

3. Yuttari no Sato
Our local favorite, AKA the Yosh Onsen. Three indoor baths (a regular one and two scented ones), nice outdoor bath, not-so-nice steam room. The restaurant is nice and homey; it took me a year and a half to figure out what their specialty is, but now I can recommend the tonkatsu teishoku with confidence. (The tenzaru soba in the summer is pretty good, too.)

4. Unohama Ningyokan
The baths themselves are small but nice--one indoor and one outdoor with a view of the ocean--but I didn't really enjoy the one time I came here because some woman brought her son who was WAY too old to be in the women's side of the onsen (he was at least 8 or 9) so I spent the whole time in silent outrage trying to hide behind my towel. Some people, man. I'll give it another try some other time. There's also a pool downstairs (admission is separate), and quite a bit more to do around the building, it looks like.

5. Robatakan
I really only included this one to prevent people from seeing the sign on Route 8 and getting the mistaken impression that it's worth going to. Don't bother.

Joetsu, one year later

It's that time again--JET placements are coming out, and in the next few days 11 lucky people will be frantically scouring the internet for information about Joetsu. I wrote this post a little over a year ago, before I came to Japan, and apparently it's come up in Google searches about Joetsu, so I figure this is as good a time as any to update those impressions now that I've been here almost a year.

(I also posted these pictures from Google Earth, which I now find hilarious because you know that "OMG, snow" picture of Takada? That's clearly beginning-of-winter snow. That's PUSSY snow. Two months later, shit gets real.)

Um... anyway, I may or may not continue to indulge in this kind of good-natured hazing, but the truth is that I love it here. I was more or less bang-on with my attempt to describe the layout in that old post: there's a town center (Naoetsu is north, Takada is south), and outside that, miles and miles of rice fields and some teacher housing. Joetsu itself isn't total inaka; there's a JUSCO, a Uniqlo, a movie theater, restaurants, a coffee shop, three McDonalds, a nice park, some okay bars (though the regular Saturday night crowd is nothing to write home about). There are also a ton of big box stores, which might surprise you if you've never been to Japan; apparently suburban sprawl and architectural eyesores are not unique to my homeland. It ain't San Francisco, but it has more or less everything you need.

And then there's the rest. There are still vast parts of it that I haven't explored (a project for an upcoming weekend, I think), but Yoshikawa, where I live, is a more or less typical example. It takes 30 to 40 minutes to get here from town. There are a few shops (conbini, pharmacy, gas station) within about 10 minutes' walk, and a bit farther out there's a 7-11, a sake brewery, and a nice little onsen with a restaurant (typical teishoku fare). There are two mountains, Yoneyama and Okamidake. The nearest supermarket is about a 10 minute drive away, in the next ward. Other than that, Yoshikawa consists entirely of rice fields. 

I probably haven't sold anyone on it with what I've said here, but Joetsu can be a great place if you let it. I was never a nature type before I got here but watching the changes in the rice fields throughout the seasons is an awesome thing (awesome as in "full of awe," not "totally tubular"). The mountains, the coastline, the snow--all of them are absolutely stunning. We're no more than an hour away from awesome snowboarding (by that I DO mean "totally tubular"), and Nagano City is a lovely little city (with real shopping, jazz bars, Starbucks, Thai food and a famous temple) that's about an hour and a half away by train. 

It has been a pretty intense year, but Joetsu has been good to me, good enough that I've signed up for another year. Bring on the snow!

Exploring

I've been horrible about updating my blog, and it's been brought to my attention that half the people I gave the address to think it's broken because there haven't been any updates. Sorry! Today is the first day I've had completely to myself since arriving, I think. All the other ALTs went to the nearby island for a weekend festival. I'm all alone, with all the free time in the world and money in my wallet because I just got paid, and man does it feel goooooood.

First off, some everyday stuff.

This is where I live. I'm the house on the far right, with the car parked in front. The other three belong to other ALTs.

I don't want to post pictures of the inside until I've bought some more furniture and generally made everything look nicer, but I absolutely love the house--it has four rooms (entryway, kitchen, living room and bedroom), traditional Japanese-style, with sliding doors, shoji screens and two tatami rooms. 

This is the view from my front window--a rice field, a mountain and the neighbor's garden.

Some of the things I bought to brighten up the house when I got paid yesterday. I love the bunny glasses--so adorable and retro. And I am SO EXCITED about the little plants from the 100 yen shop. I will water them and love them and give them names. (Suggestions welcome!) The little green vase thing came with the apartment, and the paper Audrey Hepburn vase was a gift from Bri--she made it herself! (Thank you!)

To take advantage of my first free day in a month, I decided to go explore some random forest paths that I had noticed on my drive into town.

Path #1. This wasn't one of the ones I was originally intending to take--it's not really noticeable from the road, but it was right next to where I parked, so I walked down it for about 15 minutes before coming back to explore the others. There wasn't much along the way, but the forest was absolutely beautiful. I'm still really curious about where it eventually leads, so I'll probably be heading back at some point.

Path #2. This one went up the side of the mountain.

A shrine? A shack? I have no idea.

There are 33 somethings this way! But what could they be??? (On a side note, I miss being literate.)

Let's find out...

As I found out when I looked up the kanji on the sign back at home, they were 33 stone statues of Kannon, the goddess of mercy. Apparently the idea of Kannon having 33 forms is a common one in Japan; there are other sets of 33 Kannon statues, even within Joetsu. Definitely the coolest thing I've stumbled upon so far.


After that I took another path that connected to the one I was on. It only ended up leading to a graveyard, but it was a hell of a hike, so after getting some katsu curry I pretty much spent the rest of the day hanging out at home reading and getting some much-needed rest.

AUGH

So I've been in Japan for almost a week and a half, and haven't posted a thing here. I KNOW. Turns out I severely underestimated how overwhelming it would be to, you know, move to another country. Practically every move I made for the first week was carefully coordinated and choreographed by others, and when I had a spare moment to myself you damn well better believe I spent it passed out on my futon. I have about an hour before I have to go to bed tonight and I'd rather spend it watching Orange Days than updating my blog, but here are a bunch of pictures, at least. Since that's all you all really come here for anyway. Right?

View from my hotel room on the first night. This was pretty much how Tokyo made me feel.

AWESOME PEOPLE HAVING AWESOME TIMES

 

SHIBUYA

 

WHAT

This is roughly what EVERYTHING EVER looks like around my place, which results in me getting lost a lot. Joetsu/Takada/Naoetsu is actually a legitimate city, though, which surprised me after some of the descriptions that I've heard.

 

 

Kakizaki Beach, where I ended up roughly 45 minutes after dropping my stuff off at my new apartment. Believe me, I have learned a thing or two about pacing myself since then.

 

AUUUUGHHHHHHHHHH

I just had dinner (pasta with spinach and some funky cheese I found--I promise I'll never again make fun of those people who get all their food imported), at my own table, in my own kitchen. My apartment is absolutely fantastic, but I don't want to post a video until after I'm done cleaning and decorating. It's going a lot faster now after the realization that I can just throw everything in the storage space beneath the house. 

More soon!

A couple more pictures of Joetsu

This is a street in the town center, Takada. Don't even try to tell me that this is not the most awesome goddamn thing you have ever seen in your entire life. I know you're jealous.

A shrine, also in Takada. From what I hear all the JETs in the area are a good 30-40 minute drive from Takada, but it's sort of a central meeting place.

This is on the beach toward Itoigawa, the next town south of Joetsu.

I found out that I'll be teaching at one junior high school, and probably also visit several elementary schools on a regular basis, which sounds pretty much perfect!

Joetsu-shi, Niigata-ken (上越市, 新潟県)

(I copy-pasted that kanji from Wikipedia. Come on, you think I know how to write that on my own?)

I just received word of my placement on the JET program. I'll be in Joetsu, which is a city in Niigata Prefecture.

Niigata is the only prefecture I requested, and it's where my great-grandparents were born, so I'm super stoked! I'm not sure I really have a feel for what it's like yet, but these are some of the things I found out:

• The "city" is really an amalgamation of various towns and villages that have undergone mergers to become one municipality. I can't seem to find a good map or photos, but I believe there's a central urban area and then some smaller villages with lots of nature and countryside in between. The population is just over 200,000, but the total area of the city is larger than LA, bringing the population density to 212 people per km². (For comparison, Folsom is 318/km²; San Francisco is 6,688.4/km².)
• Niigata-ken in general is known for rice farming, excellent sake (made from the rice, duh), SNOW and onsens (hot springs). Joetsu-shi seems to be no exception.
• Joetsu is about 2.5 hours from Tokyo by shinkansen. That becomes 5 or 6 hours when you take a regular train or bus. Shinkansen is pretty expensive but I'll be making a lot so maybe I'll be able to pop out to Tokyo for the weekend once in a while!
• In addition to the summer fireworks festivals and springtime cherry blossom festivals (which are common to most places in Japan), Joetsu hosts a Lotus Festival, a sake festival, a firefly festival and a snow candle festival. 

• There are also temples, castles, an aquarium and a planetarium. It sounds like there's a lot to do!

I still haven't gotten in contact with my predecessor and may not hear from them for several more weeks, so all the specifics of my situation (apartment, rent, car) are still up in the air. Chances are I'll be teaching middle or elementary school, though.

Here are a few extra links:

Joetsu city English website
Joetsu tourism guide
Joetsu region guide on the Niigata JET page
Joetsu Wikipedia entry