Visiting Kanayama Series

We will show you snapshots of Kanayama Town in the Visiting Kanayama Series. We will give links to Google maps showing the locations of the places you’ll visit. Nukumorinosato is located on Route 41. This long name can be broken down into Nuku-mori-no-sato. We wonder what it means. See Pic 1.

Nukumorinosato is a Michi-no-eki, a roadside station with restaurants and gift shops. The sign says, “onsen station” because it has two onsen spas. Onsen is written 温泉, where the first character means warm and the second means spring water. There are many public baths in Japan, but only those with natural mineral water are called onsen. Not only do onsen baths do wonders for tight muscles and stressed minds, they offer health and beauty benefits as well.
Pic 2 shows the Nukumorinosato roadside shop, where on the left is the shop selling local produce and other products. Pics 3 and 4 are snaps of the outside and inside of the shop.

Nukumorinosato is anchored by the onsen-restaurant-hotel called Karen. It is written: かれん. Perhaps it’s a Japanese girl’s name, for is pronounced in the Japanese fashion Ka-ren. It has a restaurant on the right, a gift shop on the left, indoor-outdoor spa for men and women in the basement, and nine Japanese and Western rooms on the second floor all of which overlook the Maze River.
Across the street is the other onsen, Yuttarikan. Yuttarikan 湯ったり館 means place of relaxation, and the large character in front is the hiragana yu, ゆ. Yu means hot water, hot bath water. Yuttarikan has a nice gift shop, and a restaurant with traditional meals for lunch and dinner.

Shopping finds
The gift shop of Karen displays many foodstuffs for home and for gifts. Very popular are gifts of miso, pickles, and of course sweets. There are four choices of boxed sweets with the Kimi no Na Wa theme, including (on the right) a box of Kataware-doki Caramels.


You can buy the locally made herb tea at the Nukumorinosato roadside shop or at Yuttarikan. Our favorite is a blend that contains lemon balm, lemon grass, mint, and chamomile (Yuttarikan). Among other specialty products is a bottle of hinoki essential oil which releases stress, and hinoki tissue boxes (both at the roadside shop). The Japanese cypress hinoki (Chamaecyparis obtusa) grows in Hida and is a high quality wood. There is a brand of Hida-bobo hand cream that contains collagen and smells nice (Karen). And each of you must have a Hida-bobo, the lucky charm of Hida, a hand-made red monkey boy (Karen, Yuttarikan).
Medical needs
Just in case you need a hospital (as we did), rest assured that the Kanayama Hospital is conveniently located next to Yuttarikan. The service is excellent, even if you have no Japanese insurance. The intake nurse communicated with us via a smart phone which translated her words into English text. Payment (reasonable enough) is by cash only. We had the doctor’s prescription filled at the adjacent Asahi Pharmacy bearing the icon of a green cross.

All in all, Nukumorinosato is a convenient place to shop, eat, and stay — and have your medical needs met.
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