Return to Tojinbo! (Fukui Prefecture, Japan)

 Emi and I recently went on a 3 day mystery tour. We were told to be at Haneda Airport (Tokyo) at 8:00 am to meet our guide and get our boarding pass. For the next 3 days we won't know where we're going until we get there. When we got to our boarding gate we found out we would fly into Komatsu airport in Fukui prefecture. When we arrived at the Komatsu airport there was a bus waiting for us and it turned out that the first place we were going to visit was Tojinbo. We had visited Tojinbo last year but when we did it then the conditions were not so good; this time it was much better!

To get to the sightseeing part one has to walk down a short street lined with shops and restaurants.

This is the first sight one sees of the Tojinbo sea coast. 

These steps that lead down to the ocean were roped off today. 

Some of the other people that are part of the mystery tour.

Everyone is taking pictures.

Other people are posing to have their picture taken.

Okay, it's time for me to leave the group and walk around to check out some other scenery.

This place is beautiful!

The last time I was here the sky was hazy and the sea was flat. 

This time is so much better.

The man standing on top of the rock gives one a good sense of how big the rocks are. 

We're here on a Wednesday; if we were here on the weekend it would be very crowded with other tourists.

We were told that it was snowing here yesterday. Lucky us, we have blue sky and nice clouds.

They have filmed movies and television shows here. 

I'm trying to see as much as I can before it's time to get back on the bus.

If I ever come here again it would be nice to be able to ride on that tour boat.

Well, it's time to go back to the bus.

All aboard! 

So now we're back on the bus and we don't know where we're going next. 

See you next time as we continue the mystery tour!

Mike

Bonus shots! Miura beach.

Destination - Shima Onsen (Gunma Prefecture)

This time we visited Shima Onsen, a remote hot-spring village in Gunma Prefecture. I normally describe the transportation route we used to get from our house to our destination but this time I'm going to skip that and we'll start with our arrival.

This is the Shima Grand Hotel. We'll stay here tonight and then we'll spend the next night at another hotel about 100 yards up the hill from here. 

The entrance to the Shima Grand Hotel. We were too early to check into our room so we drooped  off our bags with the front desk and went for a walk.

Emi got a local walking map from the front desk and with that we set off for some sightseeing and exercise.

Turns out there's not a lot of sightseeing to do here; but we continued knowing that the walk would do us good.

Lots of trees around here.

This is a surprise, there's snow on the ground. We continued to head uphill.

Here's a cute little snow removal machine.  

At the top of the hill we found Shima Dam.

Now we're having a damn good time. I take a picture of Emi...

And, Emi takes a picture of me! 

There's a nice little park at the dam. On a nice day in warmer weather this would be a good place for a picnic lunch.

Time to walk back down the hill.

It's time to check into the hotel and enjoy a hot bath and a buffet dinner.

Day 2: We stayed at the Grand hotel until 11:00 am and then we checked out walked the short distance to our next hotel and dropped our bags off with the front desk and went for a walk in search of a place to eat lunch. 

Shima Onsen village is a small place and there aren't a lot of choices for places to eat. We wondered through this small narrow street in the center of town. 

Emi decided we'd eat at this Soba restaurant... it was a good choice.

It's nice and warm inside the restaurant. We placed our orders and enjoyed hot tea while we waited to be served. 

Here comes the soba!

I'm having soba mixed with a ground mountain potato.

It tastes fantastic!

All gone!

After lunch we did some more walking around and sightseeing.

This is Sekizenkan. It's the most famous Inn in Shima Onsen village.

It's worth one's time to check out their website https://www.sekizenkan.co.jp/

This Inn looks wonderful when it's all lit up at night. Sadly on this day it was kind of dull and dreary outside and my pictures are not very exciting.

There was a TV camera crew from TV Tokyo filming in the same area we were and they asked Emi for permission to use us in the film. They also said there was no guarantee that the footage of us wouldn't get cut in editing. It turned out that we were cut in editing; oh well. 

A hotel worker walked by and looked at us while we were talking to the guys from TV Tokyo. Maybe she thought I was a movie star! 😎

Okay, it's time to check into our hotel for the night. It's a short walk up this hill to the entrance.

Tonight we're staying at the Shima Tamura Hotel. The hotel is huge but the entrance was small and hard for us to find. Hard to believe but this is the entrance. 

The hotel is old and very traditional in many ways. This is the front desk.

This is their website: https://shima-tamura.co.jp/

The hotel is so big and spread out that they give you a map so that one can find their room, the dinning room and all the different hot baths. 

It's big but cozy at the same time.

Dinner time! 

We ate in a secluded (romantic) kind of fancy cubical.

The food and service was outstanding.

The food just kept coming... the drinks too!

we were served local beef.

Very nice! Very filling. 

Early next morning I went down to one of the many hot baths for a quick soak before breakfast. This is the entrace.

This is the changing room. No photography inside the bath.

Breakfast was another grand affair.

The breakfast dinning room.

After breakfast Emi read the newspaper in one of the lounge areas. Then it was time to pack our bags and check out. 

Killing some time in yet another lounge area before walking down the hill to the bus stop. There's only one bus in the morning and we don't want to miss it.

We were early and so was our bus so we got a good seat. The bus departed on time with a full load of people and we headed for the train station to start or journey home!

Our three day, two night trip was terrific, we will probably stay here again in the future. 

Thanks for stopping by!

Mike