千曲市の屋代駅に久しぶりに訪ねてきました。駅ビルの中でちょっとしたギャラリーがありまして、今はキルトショーです。本来なら、作家は誰か、展示はいつまでか、連絡先など調べて、ここにお知らせしたかったです。が、このいたずらの美咲ちゃんを連れていていた者で、何も出来ませんでした。すみません。
亀清旅館は私の母親のキルト作品がいくつか飾ってありますのでキルトの関心のある方は是非、ごらんになってください。
For the first time in a long time, I stopped by Yashiro Station on the north side of Chikuma City. Inside the station house, there is a mini art gallery. They had several quilts on display. Normally, I would have liked to find out who the artist was, the dates of the display, contact info, etc., and posted it here on this blog. However, I was with our little trouble-maker, Misaki, and couldn't do any of that -- Sorry!
Here at Kamesei Ryokan, we have several quilt wall hangings made by mother on display. So for any of you quilt fans out there, please come and take a look!

（屋代駅は戸倉上山田温泉の最適の戸倉駅から１ストップです。Yashiro Station is 1 stop away from our nearest stastion, Togura.)

亀清旅館の裏に行ったら、道の向こう側から「とんとんとん」という音が聞こえた。あっ、瑞祥でまたそば打ちをやっているのだ。今までは何度も聞こえましたけど、今日は娘の美咲ちゃんを連れて見に行きました。瑞祥はスーパー銭湯みたいな温泉お風呂屋さんで食堂も付いています。入口の横にそば打ち部屋があって、大きい窓があるから打っている作業が見えます。音も遠くまで移ります。
娘と２人で見ましたら、お風呂を入りに来たお客さんも「何を見ているの？」って感じで寄って、一緒に見ました。
信州はそばが有名だと皆が分かっていますが、普段はそば打ちを実際に見る機会がなかなかないです。でもこの戸倉上山田温泉の瑞祥さんならほぼ毎日に見えます。（時間は特に決まっていないので見たい方は事前にお電話をするようにお勧めします。）
1つな注意点があります。彼女を連れて行く男の方、と注意下さい。瑞祥のそば打ち職人が格好いいし、彼の手の技術が凄いです。ジェラシーになるかもしれません。;)
When I took our daughter for a walk behind our inn, I heard a rhythmic banging sound from across the street. Ahh, the soba maker at our neighbor Zuisho must be working his soba making magic again. Zuisho is a "Super-Sento" style bathhouse, and they have a cafeteria inside. At the entrance, there is a special room for making soba, and it has a big window so anyone can watch the action.
In the past, I've heard the soba maker at work and seen him from afar. But today I decided to go up to the window and watch him from up close. While Misaki and I were enthralled by his actions, some guests coming to take a bath stopped and watched with us.
Nagano is famous for soba buckwheat noodles, but you don't often get a chance to actually see them being made. Here in Togura Kamiyamada Onsen, you can see "soba-uchi" almost every day at Zuisho. (Call beforehand to confirm that day's time.)
One warning, though. For you guys who go with your girlfriend, be ware: Zuisho's soba maker looks really cool and his precision handwork is impressive. You may be jealous by how your friend likes to watch him!

戸倉上山田温泉、湯の華銭湯「瑞祥」のｈｐはこちら
Click here for Zuisho's website.

お月様が戸倉上山田温泉のシンボルのネオンの裏に沈んでいたのでネオンの追加光に見えました。（写真が分かるつらくてすみません。）

The moon went down behind our town's signature neon sign tonight, becoming an extra light for the neon. (Sorry about the bad picture quality.)

戸倉上山田温泉・千曲市観光協会のHPはこちらClick here for the tourism website of Togura Kamiyamada Onsen / Chikuma City

残念ながら、つくのに間に合わなかったけど、最後のお持ちを食べれました。そして、お酒も頂きました。朝はあれだけ布団上げしたせいか、そのお酒が美味しかったです。銀座通り商店街、有難うございました。どんどん盛り上がってください。
来年はつく事を間に合うようにします。

Unfortunately we didn't make it in time to help the Ginza Business Association guys pound the rice to make mochi sticky rice, but we did get to help eat at the end. They even gave me some sake. Maybe it was because of all the exertion I did flipping futons this morning, but that sake tasted exceptionally good. My thanks to the Togura Kamiyamada Onsen Ginza Business Association! Next year I will try to make in time to help pound.

亀清旅館の玄関にこんなに大きい臼が置いてあります。ここの亡くなったお父さんが子供のころに使ったようなのでその親戚から頂きました。「これで餅をつくか」とお客様に良く聞かれます。特に、年末に。この戸倉上山田温泉の銀座通り商店街で毎年、餅つき大会をやるので私が応援で子供を連れてそちらに行きます。という訳で、残念ながら、亀清の臼は飾りだけになっちゃっています。
（それと、私が打つ役としても、こ練ってくれる人がいない。。。）
At the entrance to our inn, we have this massive "usu", a mortar used for pounding boiled rice into mochi sticky rice. Our guests often ask us if we use it for making mochi, especially around this time of the year. (Mochi-making is a New Years tradition in Japan.) However, Togura Kamiyamada Onsen's Ginza Street business association throws a mochi-making party every year and I take the kids to that instead. So our usu is unfortunately just a big decoration.
(One other reason we don't do it here is you need two people: the pounder and the kneeder. I like to do the pounding, but who's going to kneed?)

このお正月の銀座通り商店街「餅つき大会」が1月3日（土）、午前11時からの予定です。是非、ご一緒に盛り上がりましょう！
This New Year's Ginza Business Association "Mochi Making Event" will be held on 03-Jan (Sat) from 11am. Come on and pound mochi with us!

戸倉上山田温泉の亀清旅館のHPはこちらClick here for the website of Kamesei Ryokan in Nagano.

城山の善光寺別院から見た戸倉上山田温泉の夜景です。姨捨駅から見る善光寺平の夜景の方が広くて綺麗ですが、こうやって見れば戸倉上山田温泉の夜景も魅力的ですね。千曲川の手前の方に戸倉温泉街と上山田温泉街が見えて、大正橋と万葉橋の向こうに新戸倉温泉があって、右手に坂城町の光も。
温泉街から車で4分、又は歩いて20分ぐらいです。

This is the view at night of the lights of Togura Kamiyamada Onsen from the Zenkoji Betsuin Temple on Jyo-Yama (Joe Mountain?). The view from Obasute Station of the lights of the Zenkoji Plain is more impressive, but the lights of our onsen town are pretty, too. From the temple you can see the main streets of Togura Onsen and Kamiyamada Onsen on the near side of the Chikuma river, then Taisho and Manyo Bridges, Shin (New) Togura Onsen on the far side, and the lights of Sakaki Town to the right.
The temple is a 4 minute drive from the Onsen, or a 20 minute (steep) walk.

戸倉上山田温泉に色んなキャラクターがいます。写真屋さんの富岡さんはその1人です。彼の撮る写真に載っている皆はいつも良い笑顔をしています。彼のギャグの面白さのお蔭でしょう。今日は駒をくれました。日本の伝統的なおもちゃですけど、私はやり方が良く分からなかった。そして、富岡さんが美咲ちゃんと私たちにやり方を見せてくれた。紐で持ち上げたり、手のひらでやったり、とっても上手でした。

Our onsen town here of Togura Kamiyamada is fortunate to be the home to many interesting characters. Our photographer, Tomioka-san, is one of them. The people in his portraits are always smiling -- mostly due to his funny antics. I(f you speak a bit of English or Spanish, Tomioka-san would only be too happy to practice on you.
Today he gave us a spinning top. He kindly demonstrated the traditional Japanese way, deftly using a string. He amazed Misaki and us by lifting the top up by the string and spinning it on the palm of his hand. Every onsen needs a funny photographer like Tomioka-san!
信州戸倉上山田温泉の亀清旅館のHPはこちらClick here for the website of Kamesei Ryokan in Nagano.

戸倉上山田温泉の「女将の会」の「ブラ～リオ散歩昼間の楽しみ」の地図が更新されました。最近は沢山の新しい店や見所がこの温泉で、皆様のお蔭で、出来ましたのでこの新しい地図でお客様に案内できます。この一年間でおニューはこれだけ（これだけこの温泉が生き生きしている！）：
＊大勝館　（大勝劇・毎日2回）
＊ギャラリー・CAFE都ャ
＊にしざわ貯金箱かん
＊ぷち薬師doパン屋さん
＊からころ足湯
そして、この地図が出来てから、更に新しいお店が出来ました：BambooというPreserved Flower屋さん。次の更新が楽しみだ！
Togura Kamiyamada Onsen's "Okami-kai" group of inn proprietesses has updated their Bura~ri walking map of the town. Over the past year, there have been so many new shops and attractions opened in our town, and now finally we have a proper map to best guide our guests.
Here are just some of the new items on the map:
*The Taisho-Kan theater featuring geisha drag shows (twice daily -- beautiful kimonos, beautiful dancing, it's just the hairy legs that get me)
*Miyako-ya Art Gallery and Cafe
*Nishizawa Piggy Bank Museum
*Pucchi-Yakushi-do Bread Shop
*The new "kara-koro" foot bath
Already, there has been a new shop to open up since the map came out: the preserved flower shop Bamboo. Now we have something to look forward to for the next update!

新しい地図のご希望な方は亀清旅館へお問い合わせをどうぞ。Contact us at Kamesei Ryokan for your copy of the new map.

信州戸倉上山田温泉の亀清旅館のHPはこちらClick here for the website of Kamesei Ryokan in Nagano

県外からのお客様にいつも長野に来る理由をお聞きします。この連休はりんご関係が多いです。マイ木を持っている家族が収穫しに来たり、ジャムを作る為にりんごを取りに来たり、子供達にりんご狩りを体験さす為に来たり、等など。亀清旅館のロビーに宮下農園から頂いたりんごをまた「ご自由にどうぞ」とフロントにおいてあります。上山田は本当にりんごに恵まれています。

Whenever we have guests from out of the prefecture, I always ask them their reason for coming to Nagano. For this holiday weekend, for many of them their purpose for coming to Nagano was: Apples! One family sponsors a whole tree and came to harvest it, another came to get apples for making jam, another came to give their kids the experience of picking apples, etc., etc. One local apple orchard, Miyashita Farm, gave us a bunch of apples and we have them set out at our front counter for the guests to have. Kamiyamada is certainly blessed with delicious apples!

戸倉上山田温泉の中心にある公園に今年はまた冬のイルミネーションをやります。我々旅館青年部が飾り付けしました。長野の寒い冬にイルミネーションの温もりをどうぞ、お楽しみに。

This year once again their will be winter lights in the park in the middle of Togura Kamiyamada Onsen. The other innkeepers and I put up the lights today. Nagano's winter is bitingly cold, but hopefully these lights will warm peoples' hearts.