Hard winter insisted on hanging around until Friday — the first week of March was a lot like the last week of January this year — but finally, as of Saturday, air temps were above freezing and patches of ground started emerging from their white covering. In the back yard at least. A few more days of this and I’ll be able to see the front yard again.

Yumura Onsen, the Hyogo Tourism Guide tells us [all sic], “was opened by Jikaku Daishi about 1,150 years ago. In the central part of the hot spring street there is a freshly heated water fountain and since the opening, 470 liters of hot water (98ºC) come gushing out per minute. Taking a rest in the 21m long foot bath along the river in the hot spring town is recommended.”

I’ll go along with that. Hyogo Prefecture includes Kobe, but Yumura’s toward the other side of the mountains, near the coast of the Sea of Japan. I visited Yumura in March 1992, and posted about it before — especially on the local practice of boiling eggs in the hot spring water. None of the pictures I have of the visit include the eggs or the hot springs, but I do have some of us gadding around the small town.

I remember the minshuku we stayed at fondly (the basics of minshuku are here). Sleeping on the floor is seldom an issue with me, especially when it involves sleeping on a tatami.
The floor at the Yumura minshuku was so comfortable that it was hard to get up in the morning. Harder than usual, that is.