HOKURIKU / KOSHINETSU
Nozawa Onsen
Travel journal from Nozawa Onsen, with 9 notes on the places I ate, the dishes I cooked and the sights: The Ogama hot-spring source, The Oyu and the 13 sotoyu bathhouses, The village with onsen in its name, Onsen tamago boiled in the hot spring.
Journeys: 1 · Notes: 9
Journeys
01
Cook the local flavors once more
Dishes made in borrowed kitchens, and how each one connects to the land.
Nozawaonsen, Nagano
Onsen tamago boiled in the hot spring
At the Ogama, the main source of Nozawa Onsen, water close to 90 degrees wells up, and locals have long boiled mountain vegetables and eggs in it.
From: Boiling breakfast in a hot spring: life in Nozawa
Nozawaonsen, Nagano
Rice bowl with stir-fried nozawana, fried tofu and onsen tamago
Nozawana is said to descend from Tennoji turnip seeds that the priest of Kenmei-ji temple in Nozawa Onsen brought back from Kyoto in 1756.
From: Boiling breakfast in a hot spring: life in Nozawa
02
A little of each town’s story
Sights, specialties and how the towns came to be: small cultural notes beside each journey.
Nozawaonsen, Nagano
The Ogama hot-spring source
One of the springs that feed Nozawa Onsen, with water close to 90 degrees.
From: Boiling breakfast in a hot spring: life in Nozawa
Nozawaonsen, Nagano
The Oyu and the 13 sotoyu bathhouses
Nozawa Onsen has 13 sotoyu, communal bathhouses, kept up by villagers through a system called yunakama.
From: Boiling breakfast in a hot spring: life in Nozawa
Nozawaonsen, Nagano
The village with onsen in its name
Nozawaonsen, in Shimotakai District, Nagano, is the only village in Japan with onsen in its name.
From: Boiling breakfast in a hot spring: life in Nozawa
Nozawaonsen, Nagano
Freshly boiled corn and sasa-dango
Eaten with the onsen tamago beside the Ogama.
From: Boiling breakfast in a hot spring: life in Nozawa
Nozawaonsen, Nagano
Oyaki of Shinshu
One of Nagano's best-known regional foods: a wheat-flour dough wrapped around nozawana, seasonal vegetables or sweet bean paste, then baked or steamed.
From: Boiling breakfast in a hot spring: life in Nozawa
Nozawaonsen, Nagano
Nagano's horse-meat culture
Eating horse meat in Nagano is said to have begun in the late Meiji era, when aging farm horses were put to the table, and took root mainly in the central and s…
From: Boiling breakfast in a hot spring: life in Nozawa
03
Places we stopped along the way
What we ate and bought, with shop details checked against published listings.
