The big 4 day adventure -Exploring Yamagata city

 Firstly, I am surprised at how nice Yamagata city is.

Secondly, it's about to get even nicer!

 Welcome to The Yamagata Bunshokan: the former prefectural office building. 

Per the internet:

The original Bunshokan was built in 1877 but was destroyed in a major fire that swept through Yamagata City in 1911. In 1913, reconstruction was completed, and the building continued to be used until 1975, when the office moved to its current building in the Matsunami district of the city. After being vacated, the Bunshokan was left to fall into disrepair until being designated an Important Cultural Property of Japan in 1984. Soon after, restoration efforts eventually brought the building back to its original condition, and it opened as a museum to the public in 1995. Today you can visit the museum free of charge, and tour its interpretive center and many rooms with original furnishings. Free guides are also available, however, only in Japanese.

What a treat it is to walk around inside this building.

I feel like I'm in a palace.

These are not real people. This is one of the many offices in the Bunshokan set up to show what daily life looked like.

This place is incredible.

The view from the second floor balcony.

Stepping back inside.

Every room is beautiful.

Moving from room to room. Fortunately it's not crowded. Most of the time I'm in a room all by myself.

One of the displays.

Looking out a window. 

This building is attached to the main Bunshokan building.

The front gate entrance to the Bunshokan.

Another view of the front of the Bunshokan. 

After we finished visiting the Bunshokan we returrned our rental car to Nippon Rent-a-car and walked to our hotel for the night. 

Next morning, after breakfast we checked out of the hotel and walked to the  Yamagata Castle Ruins. Emi and Hiroko posing for a picture on the bridge over the outer moat.

Here we are at the Yamagata Castle Ruins. The inner moat is empty.

It's enjoyable to walk around.

We have the place to ourselves.

Your basic Castle Ruins scenery 

More basic Castle Ruins scenery 

Okay, time to move on.

Next it's a short walk to the Yamagata Prefectural Museum where the special treat is this national treasure "The Jomon Goddess".

Somehow I managed to finish walking around the Museum before Hiroko and Emi so I walked around the nice park outside the museum.

Okay, last sight to see before we head to the train station for our trip home.

This is the Old Saiseikan Hospital Building.

It was closed for repair/renovation work. This is a website wit good information:

https://www.gov-online.go.jp/hlj/en/february_2025/february_2025-02.html

After this we walked to Yamagata train station and caught the Shinkansen train to go home. 

It was a wonderful 4 day adventure; well planed by Emi and Hiroko was our excellent rent-a-car driver. I'm looking forward to our next big adventure!

All the best,

Mike 

The big 4 day adventure -Exploring Zao

It was time to say goodbye to Miyagi prefecture and cross over into Yamagata prefecture. And, the first place to visit is Zao Okama Crater.

Zao Okama Crater: A circular crater lake surrounded by the three peaks of Zao Katta-dake, Kumano-dake, and Goshiki-dake.

Now that we're here, we have to figure out how to get closer; there doesn't seem to be a walking path to get down the slope to the edge of the crater.  

After slowly walking around rocks and mud puddles the three of us finely made it to the edge.

However we wanted (I wanted) to get more closer. we kept walking along the fence to get nearer to the crater.

At this point Emi and Hiroko said that they had seen enough of the crater and they were going up these stairs to go visit the shrine on top of the mountain. I would catch up with them later because I was on a mission to get the best view of the Zao Okama Crater!

And, this is the best view! 

Now it's time for me to go back to the stairs and head up to the shrine. 

Note: no mater where you are in Japan, even in the middle of nowhere, there are always stairs to climb! I paused here to look back down at the crater before continuing up.

At the top of the stairs there was a nice walking path heading to the shrine. The tall poles on the left side are to help people find the trail when the ground is covered with snow.

Still going up but I'm getting closer.

I finally made it to the top! That's Hiroko on the right side of the picture.

It's nice and peaceful up here.

The jagged white line on the monument was caused by lightning!

Well, it's time to say goodbye to the mountain top; we're going to head for Zao Onsen where we'll be spending the night. 

This is the center of the Zao Onsen town. We need to find a place to eat lunch.

This place will do!

Let's eat!

After lunch we did a little walking around and sightseeing. This is a natural hot spring; the water is extremely hot!

We checked into our Inn a 15:00 (standard check in time)

 https://www.zao-yoshidaya.com/

We all enjoyed bathing in the Inn's hot spring bath. Then after taking a little rest in the room it was time to go to the dining room for dinner. 

We were all in a good mood and ready for hot food and cold drinks.

Emi and I only have empty glasses because we're waiting for the drinks to come.

Kanpai! Cheers! This highball is great!

Now it's time to eat.

We ordered the cook-your-own special.

Meat, vegetables, mushrooms... all kinds of good stuff.

The dinning room is cozy. 

I'm enjoying a glass of wine with my meal.

Next morning and it's time for breakfast.

My favorite: onsen tamago on rice!

Emi's enjoying her miso soup.

After breakfast we checked out of the Inn and drove down the the mountain. Our next stop is Yamagata City.

The first place we visited in Yamagata city was Gutto Yamagata. It's a big local products center and farmers market. I didn't take any pictures but here is their website: https://www.yamagata-bussan.co.jp/ 

This was a great place to visit, I highly recommend it to anyone visiting Yamagata city.

Next we visited Midoricho Garden. https://www.gakushubunka.jp/senshin-an/

It's a lovely Japanese style garden. That's Emi in the center of the picture reading the garden information pamphlet. 

After the garden we walked down the street and around the corner to visit the Yamagata Education Museum. The museum is in an old school house.

That's Hiroko about to enter the school house/museum.

We were the only people visiting the museum. It was very interesting and it was free admission too! More info here:

 https://www.yamagata-museum.jp/education-museum

Well, that's it for part two of the big 4 day adventure. The 3rd and final part of the adventure will be coming soon!

All the best,

Mike