Gero Onsen

*The Hida River was one of the first sights that greeted us when we reached Gero. iPhone 13 mini.*

After our Nakasendo hike, we went to Gero Onsen for a day of R&R. We took a bit of a long-winded way to get there—we chose to take local trains instead of the Limited Express Train Hida, and it took us about 4+ hours to finally reach Gero from Nakatsugawa.

We didn’t have much time to look around as we had to be be in our Ryokan in time for our kaiseki dinner. The city centre of Gero that’s accessible to tourists without cars is quite small, but there are still plenty of things to see. I realised pretty late that there were so many great hiking/paddling spots in this area of Gifu prefecture—I really wanted to squeeze in a trip to Hida Osaka Waterfalls and Iwaritsu Park (yes, we are not tired of waterfalls yet) but alas, these places would need cars for convenient access, and also we didn’t have enough time!

Gero Onsen is one of Japan’s top three onsens. Legend goes that after a great earthquake in 1205, the original Gero Onsen dried up, and the populace was worried. However, an injured white egret led the populace to a new hot spring, and a Yakushi Nyorai (Buddha of medicine and healing) statue was found under the pine tree the egret was bird under. The white egret is the symbol of Gero and it can be found all around town (like on the manhole cover). There are also frog icons to be spotted because the word ‘Gero’ is the sound that frogs make in Japanese.

*173 steps leading to Onsen Temple. Sony RX100V.*

The place where the Nyorai was found became the site of the Onsen Temple (Onsen-ji), which sits on top of 173 steps and above a cemetery site. On this temple, you can find a small Nyorai statue, and believers will pour the onsen water on the statue to pray for recovery on your body part that corresponds to the Nyorai statue. Above the Onsen-ji is where our ryokan, Yunoshimakan, is located. We actually went the long way around the first time and climbed the steep winding road up the mountain meant for cars instead because we wanted to avoid the steps. Big mistake!

(For those who are not keen on walking the mile or so and the 173 steps from Gero JR Station to Yunoshimakan, the ryokan does offer shuttle buses to and from the station at certain times.)

*One of the many Jizo Botatsu in Onsen-ji. Sony RX100V.*

As befitting a top 3 onsen town, there are many onsen located in Gero. While you can purchase a pass to get access to them all, you can also enjoy free foot and hand onsen in public!

*One of the public foot onsen in Gero. Sony RX100V.*

Our ryokan for the day, Yunoshimakan, is an ancient prestigious establishment, and we felt so taken care of from the moment we stepped into the building. Our room (in the traditional Japanese style—the staff helped us unroll and prepare the futon mattresses while we were having dinner) already had a huge bathtub built into it, as well as an outdoor onsen we absolutely took advantage of. Apart from the public onsen in the facility itself, it also offers many private onsen. And most importantly to us: IT OFFERS VEGAN KAISEKI.

*Going down the steps from Onsen-ji into the town centre. Sony RX100V.*

The idea of finding a plant-based ryokan in Japan already felt like a remote chance, but especially finding one outside of the major cities like Tokyo or Kyoto felt like a miracle! Yunoshimakan offers the plant-based Kaiseki course on its website, although I further added notes to clarify our dietary needs when I booked and paid for our stay. The menu is seasonal—ours was based on the summer harvest.

*I need to up my travel food photography game. Sony RX100V.*

I have never felt so full in my life. Everything was delicious and scrumptious and healthy. It was a feast in the absolute sense of the word.

This sushi was grilled in the leaf for about five minutes. Very fragrant! The rice is sourced from the rice paddies around Hida itself—so chewy and sweet and delicious. And I swear I’ve never had such delicious crispy sweet vegetables before. Sony RX100V.

We tried out the ryokan’s onsen after dinner. With a full belly and a warm body, I slept like a baby that night. I was still full in the morning when we went for breakfast, thinking that it would be the typical toast-and-coffee affair. Imagine my face when I realised it was another luxurious traditional Japanese breakfast with many courses (and lots of healthy vegetables again)! I definitely cannot recommend a Yunoshimakan experience enough if you visit Gero!

Gifu City

*The Kagari (iron basket) containing the Matsuwariki (split pine wood) bonfire (Kagaripi) that lights Ukai fishing. Sony A7C + 40/1.2 Voigtlander Nokton.*

The biggest reason why we stopped by Gifu City was frankly my being a Sengoku-geek and I just needed to visit a city made famous by Oda Nobunaga. If not for a lack of time, I would have insisted we stopped at Sengokuhara that was literally along the way from Gero to Gifu City.

*A waterfall at the Odawara Castle Park grounds. Legend has it that many of the castle women chose to commit suicide by throwing themselves into this waterfall during a battle. Sony RX100V.*

We stayed at Juhachiro, which is located in the historic precinct of Kawaramachi, a block that looks like it is preserved in time. Juhachiro offers public onsen (absolutely breathtaking at night, as the natural onsen pond is outside overlooking the river), as well as access to boarding the boats to watch Ukai right from the hotel itself. Our room was another luxurious affair in the traditional Japanese style with plush futon.

*At the Kawaramachi Streetscape. Sony A7C + 16/1.8 Viltrox.*

Naturally, we had to visit Gifu castle. From my research, I had planned for us to take Mt Kinka Ropeway to the castle keep. What I didn’t expect was that we ended up hiking and even scrambling up Mt Kinka itself to reach the castle!

Mt Kinka (Kinkazan) is made of a sedimentary rock called chert, which is formed by the petrified remains of the biological sediments of the ocean floor. This means that ages and ages ago, the rock that comprises this mountain today was once under the sea! Sony RX100V.

While at Gifu Castle Park, we came across a trail and decided to follow it. The trail forked and one of them, the Umanose trail, was labeled ‘Caution-Dangerous’ and that ‘Children and the elderly should not take this trail’. Naturally, we embarked on that one. It started off gentle enough, but afterwards most of the trail required hiking up, if not outright scrambling some steep rocky outcrops.

*One of the easier parts of the trail. Sony RX100V.*

I found out later that there are ten (!!!) trails that go up Mt Kinka to Gifu castle. Somehow this fact didn’t show up in my itinerary research that I had been doing for months, but after this trip, I now understand more about what we like and how we should further research and plan future trips (check out hiking blogs)!

What was amazing was the number of old people who casually overtook us on this trail (despite the many warnings against elderly people attempting the trail). I can only imagine how fit the local elderly population is in Gifu City—there are literal mountains and so many hiking trails at their doorstep.

The many mountains embedded right in Gifu City from a panoramic view taken at the top floor of Gifu Castle.

*Obligatory Gifu Castle picture. Sony RX100V.*

We decided to take a (much much easier) trail down instead of the ropeway, but we still stopped by the Gifu Kinzakan Squirrel Village right across the ropeway station.

This is a little sanctuary for the Taiwan squirrels that were brought into Japan during the World Expo half a century ago. I’m not entirely sure if they managed to round up the adorable creatures that unfortunately had become an invasive species, but they set up this place to take care of the squirrels and for kids to learn more about them. Upon entry, you’d be given a thick glove to feed the squirrels with.

*They will climb on you, by the way! Don’t freak out! Sony RX100V.*

We walked around a little bit before heading back to the hotel for Ukai. We had our lunch at Natural Cafe, which not only offered vegan/vegetarian dishes, but was a really cool place to hang out at—they have lots of music performances at night too.

*We walked past Shoboji but did not go in unfortunately. You can find a huge statue of the Buddha in here! Sony A7C + 16/1.8 Viltrox.*

*Scenes from Gifu City streets in the golden hour. Sony RX100V.*

We started boarding the boats for Ukai at 7PM. The sun was rapidly setting, and by the time the boats lined up by the shore to wait for the Ukai boats, it was dark.

What is Ukai? Ukai is the ancient practice of cormorant fishing that has long been done in the Nagara River in Gifu City, as well as other parts of Japan, Asia, and the world. Ukai in Gifu City is the most famous display of Ukai in Japan thanks to Oda Nobunaga, who enjoyed watching it, and recognised the value of protecting and developing cultural practices for legacy and tourism purposes. Today, Ukai is mostly done for tourists instead of actual subsistence fishing. In Gifu City, black cormorant icons are found everywhere in a show of how important Ukai is to the city.

*The Ukai watching boats for tourists. Sony A7C + 40/1.2 Voigtlander Nokton.*

I didn’t know about what Ukai actually entailed until we sat on the boat and watched it. For some reason I thought the fisherman was going to have a cormorant on his shoulder and he would command the bird into the water and back to him, like a Mongolian Eagle hunter. I was pretty off the mark.

One of the paddler(?) of the Ukai watching boats. The banks of the Nagara River we were situated at were very shallow, and the paddlers used the long bamboo stick to push the boat along the gravelly floor of the river. Sony A7C + 40/1.2 Voigtlander Nokton.

Firstly, there are Ukai fisherwomen, although the ones we watched that night were all men (I read online that the Ukai fisherwomen can be found in Kyoto). Being an Ukai fisher is a prestigious thing—the trade is passed down in the family, and the six cormorant fishers in Nagara River have an Imperial Household Cormorant Fisher title (this was translated by Google so the title is probably not accurate).

*The lantern on our boat. Each boat fits about a dozen tourists. Sony A7C + 40/1.2 Voigtlander Nokton.*

The actual fisher is just one team member out of three in a 13 meters-long cormorant boat—they will be situated at the bow handling the birds, while two other team members control the boat in the middle and at the stern.

*The paddler for our Ukai watching boat. Sony A7C + 40/1.2 Voigtlander Nokton.*

The cormorants employed in Ukai in Nagara River are sea cormorants captured from Hitachi City, Ibaraki Prefecture. The cormorant fisher will study and observe the new cormorant for months before deciding they have the temperament for Ukai fishing. As cormorants are territorial (and clique-ish), the fisher will slowly and carefully introduce the new bird to the rest of the team. The fisher takes years to train the cormorant before it is ready for Ukai, taking half a dozen or more birds with them for each trip.

What I didn’t realise was that the cormorants are tethered to the Ukai fisher, and not by their feet like you see in other bird handlers. The cormorants are controlled with a noose wire around their long neck—the noose is loose enough to let the bird eats small fish, but anything bigger (like the prized Ayu sweet fish that the Ukai fishers look for) will get stuck in their throat, and the Ukai fisher will make the bird regurgitate the fish on the boat.

*Ukai employs many people! It doesn’t run all year long though, only in the summer when the water is warm enough, from May to October. Sony A7C + 40/1.2 Voigtlander Nokton.*

That part made me uneasy. The facts that the fishers take good care of the cormorants and basically live with them in order to create lifelong bonds, and that the wild cormorants live way longer than they do in the wild are stressed repeatedly. I’ve also read online about how in some other areas of the world where cormorant fishers have been caught mishandling if not outright abusing the birds and thankfully I didn’t see anything like that here. I’m not sure how happy the birds are about the hands they have been dealt with—how are the birds who didn't have the temperament the fishers looked for got treated? I’ve also read online that it’s possible to practice untethered cormorant fishing, but in that particular case, the birds were the result of artificial incubation, and they were imprinted onto the fisher upon hatching.

*Really testing the high ISO capability of my camera here. Sony A7C + 40/1.2 Voigtlander Nokton*

But it cannot be denied that it’s powerful watching an ancient practice unfurl in front of your eyes.

*The Ukai fisher made these ‘hon-hon-hon’ sound with his mouth that sounded a lot like a duck honking! Sony A7C + 40/1.2 Voigtlander Nokton.*

Ukai watching happens in 3 stages: (i) watch the Ukai boats approach; (2) watch the boats each take turn to cruise down the river with the cormorants. As there are only six cormorant fishing boats, each boat is paired with a couple of the watching boats that will follow it for a short distance to allow for closer observation of the activity; (3) all six boats will line up and chase the fish to shallower waters, and finally at the shores we can watch them pack up the birds and the haul for the day.

I don’t have any tele lens with me for this trip—the longest focal length I have was the 70mm on my Sony RX100V, which would have been useless at this darkness! I did miss having a longer lens more and more with each new bird I saw in Japan. Sony A7C + 40/1.2 Voigtlander Nokton

At the end of the Ukai watching, the birds lined up patiently on the gunwale of the boat as the fisher coaxed out the last of the fish from their throats, untangled and stored the lines, and put the birds into a basket. Sony A7C + 40/1.2 Voigtlander Nokton.

*One last bird to go. Sony A7C + 40/1.2 Voigtlander Nokton.*

It was a bummer that we were only at Gifu City for a day as I felt that we hardly scratched the top of exploring the city (much less Gifu prefecture). Hopefully we would be able to come back and visit again next time, but for now, we had to make our way to the Shiga prefecture to sample the varied attractions around Lake Biwa.

Gero and Gifu City: Onsen and Ukai

Gero Onsen

Gifu City

A taste of the Biwako

Nakatsugawa and the Nakasendo - May 2024