A Trip to Gunma

We all recently went on a trip to Gunma Prefecture, only about 3 hours drive from Tokyo. Our trip was to celebrate the 60th birthday of Setsuko, Yuki's mum. Any trip outside of Tokyo is always eagerly awaited, and so the promise of 1 night away in the countryside was extremely appealing. We stayed at a small (and relatively unknown) resort called Sarugakyo The hotel bedroom was not the best I've stayed in, but who cares, we were out of Tokyo for the night and nothing was going to spoil our fun.

The highlights of our stay was the hotel's onsen (hot spring) and the local cuisine. The onsen was one of the nicest I have seen and guests were able to bathe inside the hotel in a lovely wooden bath or outside, under the green foliage of the surrounding trees.

The food was pretty enjoyable and I particularly liked the liquid tofu. The tofu was served in a shallow pan, under which a candle was placed. Once the candle heats the tofu, a skin forms on the top of the tofu which is known as yuba in Japan. The diner needs to continually remove and eat the skin with a bamboo stick as it forms on the surface. It may not sound appetising, but it was extremely delicious (creamy) and is apparently great for your health.

After dinner, we all made our way down to a room with an irori to sit and listen to an old crone regale us with Japanese folk stories. The folk stories were then followed by a mochi making lesson. Mochi is a popular Japanese cake made from rice. Part of the process involves beating the rice mixture with wooden hammers to create the right texture.

After mochi making, we returned to our rooms to drink a little wine and relax a bit more. Shortly afterwards, I promptly fell asleep on the futon and slept extremely soundly. A welcome break away from the hustle and bustle of Tokyo.