Hirosaki - Tsuruoka / Haguro

During the morning we visited a bit of the town, pagodas and temples, guided there by a microbiology teacher who helped us on the bus. Japanese, when talking good english, like to help. He got a Geneva postcard. :-)

Arrived to the main temple, Chosho-ji, it was on works, return walking through the avenue full of temples, like mansions in an European city.

After 4 hours of train we arrived to Tsuruoka where, at the tourism office they did not seem very keen on helping us to find accomodation in Haguro. On the question if we speak a little japanese we told yes and she start making questions in japanese. Then said that in the mashunko (temple lodging) they were not speaking english. Lonely Planet was talking about 35 of them... When we insisted she told they were closed, high season ended. It did non convince us. Outside we decided to phone the tourist office at Haguro, where they said they would try to find something and to recall in 30 minutes. We took the bus to Haguro and arrived 45 minutes after the 30 minutes indicated, in the 'center' where there was nothing. Haguro was a town along a road, several kilometers long. The bus driver did not understand what/where was the tourist office. And it was not there where we were. There was no phone booth, no map. We start walking on the street where all temple lodging was.

On the way we saw a man getting out from one of them and asked about the tourist office. not speaking english he called another man from the home. This just said that it was already closed, 17:00-closed. We explained that we were looking for accommodation. He went to talk with his wife. Back to us he told his house was also a temple lodging but they were already closed in September. However they could take us. A smile came to our faces. Then he said that they were not prepared and had no food. On my question "is there a restaurant?" he replied that in case we did not mind to eat the same as them, we could have the meals there. Great.

First half hour was spent in middle of laughings and green tea due the lack of english and explained our next day, where he offered to reserve a taxi for us.
The plan was to go at 8am to meet the taxi driver and then walk up the Haguro-san. At the top the taxi would be there and take us to the 8-gone of Gas-san. We would start walk around 10am to the top of Mt. Gassan and go down on the side of Yuduno-san. There should be a unique bus at 16:30 back to Tsuruoka.

Then he proposed to go to the onsen. 15 minutes drive, pass by the tourist office location, really far away. This onsen was great. Two hot pools, a cold one and sauna... with TV! The funny story was that after the shower I could not recognize the man anymore, I remembered he had glasses and some bad teeth. In a place where everyone is naked this elements are not visible. After 20 minutes soaking around he made a sign and we talked a bit outside while drying. He had been already in Switzerland (typical Geneva, Zurich, Jungfrau and Zermatt) and liked a lot.

Japanese style dinner in a wide room, small tables on the tatami. The sleeping room, upstairs was a big area where they had laid down the futons on the tatami. Was not easy to imagine the lodge with maybe 8 people sharing the same room.

It's 20:30 and we don't know what to do...
Sleep at 21:30 wasn't easy and the sleep had bizarre dreams.