A Winery Holiday in Yamanashi Prefecture, Japan.
We had a little holiday for three days, two nights in Yamanashi. We had to go by train of course, because we would be drinking wine the majority of the time. This holiday was on weekdays, so it was maybe not as busy as the weekend would be.
The train from Fuji City was convenient, but took over two hours to get to Kofu, the main hub of the area. Its actually quicker to come from Tokyo, only about an hour and a half, rather than from Mishima, which took nearly four hours from our house.
We arrived in Kofu at midday and went to a restaurant on the south side of the station, famous for the Yamanashi specialty, Houtou. Houtou is basically thick noodle soup, the noodles are think, not the soup. We had the spicy version, with Korean kimchi, pork and vegetables from the surrounding countryside. It was nice, but huge!
Potatoes, beans, mushrooms, kimchi, leek, thick noodles and other things.
Afterwards, we wandered round the area a little, past old shopping streets and over the bridge to the castle.
There's no castle left however, just a huge area of grass on different levels of elevation raised up by the ramparts. You get a decent view of the city from the top and there is a little gate house to see and a small castle turret to go into, which we didn't.
After walking through the castle grounds, we went to see a temple, called Chouzenji. Its a little northeast of the train lines and near a winery called Sadoya. I wanted to get a stamp for my temple stamp collection, but they didn't do them! The area was, however a little like after the zombie apocalypse, with abandoned houses, large empty spaces and no-one around. Weird and a little spooky.
Making our way to the winery, we were just in time to catch the next tour. For 1000 yen, a man leads you round a historic winery, mainly underground, and talks about the process of making wine there historically, how the process came to Japan, shows you some interesting rooms and contraptions and then lets you drink a particularly astringent glass of wine. Not particularly encouraging for our future winery visits. The tour was worth it, however, as its the only place which gives tours in the area, that we found anyway.
After the winery, we strolled along by the train tracks through the shopping street there. Its about between the castle and the winery and has many old buildings, or buildings that look old, with restaurants, souvenirs etc. That was pleasant to look around too.
Our hotel was in Isawaonsen, a few stops along the line towards Tokyo, so we took the train, and on the way stopped of at Sakaori Station and walked up the hill nearby to a lovely little garden, Furouen. We paid 500 yen each to get in and look around. The plum blossoms were starting to bloom and the wintersweet trees were already in full bloom. This is probably the best time of the year, seeing the blossoms opening means that winter is almost over and that life is coming back to the northern hemisphere again.
We sat on a bench, eating cheese and drinking wine while the plum flowers aroma wrapped around us in the late afternoon sun, still giving off a comfy heat.
Taking the train to Isawa onsen, we got a taxi to the hotel and had a nice hot spring bath in our room. Its the first time we have had an onsen in our room. We went to bed tipsy, but pretty early, because in the morning we would be touring the wineries of Yamanashi and drinking all day.
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