Middle of Nowhere

This is going to be a long post.

Two years ago we decided to leave the safety of the city and go deep into the mountains into the town of Amagase. There we would all fall in love with the little establishment called Tensui. And now after two years we have returned!

We have tried a handful of ryokans in the last 2 trips we have taken. Last week the gang had actually partook the indulgence of trying out a ryokan near Fuji-san. But we all agree the Tensui is a step above the others we have tried.

To get to Amagase, we had to take the shinkansen from Kyoto to Shin-Kobe and then from Shin-Kobe to Kurume and from taken a local train from Kurume to Amagase itself. The journey took 5-6 hours away from Kyoto.

The journey itself was pleasant enough considering I separated from the group as I reserved my shikansen seat separately (Matt couldn't book mine since I still had my JR Rail Pass). I made use of the time to get through a light novel I brought with me as well as admire the view outside.

Upon arriving in Kurume, we ended up killing a hour of time. So we wandered around the station and grabbed some lunch from the station's convenience store. The wait felt shorter than it was, and soon our train had arrived. While being a local train it was still different enough that it had a gaggle of train admirers crowd around to take pictures of it. It appeared that it was a train that operated on steam or coal instead of the modern electricity.

The travel from Kurume, had us going from farmland and into the valleys of hills and mountains. Much of the trip we skirted around the base of the mountains as we headed to Amagase.

It looked like many other passengers on the train were also heading out on their own little getaways. But upon arriving in Amagase, it would be only our band of adventurers getting of the train. Like the last trip the station had a cute welcome sign at the end of the platform.

The little village in the mountain still feels like the same as it did 2 years ago, as if it was untouched by technology. Much to our delight, the shuttle that would take us up to the Ryokan was waiting for us when we got out of the station. We had expected to have to mill about the station for another hour.

And here we would be brought to our rooms, where the girls got to have their own room with their own private bath. Unlike last time we had opted to book a room with the private bath. The chances of

them upgrading our rooms would be slim. I was able to snap a photo of their bath when we went to visit them after checking out the guy's room.

Which leads me to talk about the "room" we got, I am not lying when I say that instead of a room, we guys got a cottage to ourselves. Complete with its own balcony overlooking the river and a living room with sofa and a kotastu table 💓

After changing into our yukatas and taking a dip in the hotspring, it was time for dinner. Like last time we were treated to a 10 course meal with Ambernay and Colin getting a vegetarian equivalent. The meal itself was exquisite but unfortunately it looked like a few of us adventurers were a tad picky with their food and ended up only eating half of the meal. I hope it does not come off insulting to the chef and the cooks.

 After the wonderful meal, we decided to book some of the private baths available. Each one differently designed and required reservation. We ended up reserving three of the five available baths. I was able to sneak a picture of one of them before going in.

And now comes today's report. With the start of the morning, I was finally able to wake up on time to join Cristian and Matt on their morning runs. Seeing how we were in the middle of no where, it felt great running up and down the mountain. We ended up going up the mountain Tensui was located on and reached the top before deciding to go back down, we didn't want to go too far as we had scheduled breakfast to be at 8:30am. On our way up we passed by a bunch of old shacks and small farms, at the very top of the mountain we came upon a large orchard that appeared to be well tended to. In total we ran 4 kilometers in the span of 30 minutes, not bad consider we did it on a mountain with a few cars going past us.

 By the time we returned, it was already 8am. So we decided to take a morning bath before heading to breakfast. By the time we finished it was just a bit before 8:30 and therefore we were on time...so we thought. We had mistaken the time and the true scheduled time was actually 8:00am, half a hour ago. D'oh!



Still, the breakfast was waiting and ready for us and we happily ate it. Hopefully the lateness didn't cause too much trouble. The breakfast they prepared us was pretty neat as it allowed us to have some self-cooking involved with a small burner and some pre-prepared fish.

After having breakfast, we decided to go down to the village and explore a bit. Unlike our last trip, we decided to stay two days instead which gave us the opportunity to venture out. Manager-san was kind enough to drive us down to the village (although I think it is more for our own safety as it was storming a bit).

The first thing we chose to explore was the local attraction, Sakura Falls, which just so happens to be at the base of the river Tensui overlooked. The Falls were just a short walk from the main road and was magnificent to behold. I would estimate the falls to be 30-40 feet tall and was pretty uniform in shape.

As it was reaching lunchtime, we attempted to explore the village to see if we can finally any grub. While the town map showed a number of restaurants, almost all of them were closed. We had almost given up before we found a small little shop-café being run by a nice lady. Her shop was filled with memorabilia themed after cute little frogs. Many of which was handmade. She also operated a small café restaurant in the shop and served personal pizzas. We ordered two of the pizzas as well as a bunch of ice cream and all of it tasted great. I would happily say the picky eaters and the herbivores of our adventure were able to get a satisfying meal out of it. I'm happy for them as I wouldn't be surprised if tonight's at Tensui would end up the same as the previous night.

And with this I have caught up to date with my entries, as I write right now we are just waiting for dinner to start. Tomorrow we will depart from Tensui and Amagase and will be journeying even further into unknown as we head to another Ryokan located in the region of Hitoyoshi.