The Asamushi Onsen Experience

This past weekend, I went on another Prefecture-sponsored trip with a bunch of foreign exchange student. Having gone on plenty of these together, we've gotten much more familiar with each other at this point, and it feels a bit like taking a trip with your extended family.

Nevertheless, this time, our destination was nearby: Asamushi Onsen, a mere 10 kilometers east of my apartment in Aomori City. Asamushi, once a thriving and popular hot spring town, now caters to much fewer people after shutdowns due to economic decline and the unfortunate recent Great Earthquake. Even so, it's still a favorite place for residents of Aomori City to go and relax, and especially to have their end-of-the-year parties.

Asamushi Onsen during summer.

For us, though, our intention was to experience a bit of the local culture, whether it be traditional or brand new. Our first experience, we were told, would be snowshoeing. Since long ago, residents of Aomori Prefecture have needed to use primitive snowshoes woven out of plant material to walk atop the deep fluffy snow that falls in abundance every year. These days, the outdoorsy people still enjoy a good morning stroll out in the snow, but they use modern snowshoes manufactured from light polymers and metals.

Modern snowshoes

To our surprise, we wouldn't be snowshoeing. Instead, a representative from the ski company Blue Moris came and provided us with some quirky new equipment developed only in the last few years. I thought I had heard of Blue Morris before, and it turns out that they made the cross country skis you can freely borrow from Gappo Park.

The new equipment we were given is called "trekking skis" or "hiking skis". They start with short wide skis similar to ski-boards. On the underside, they attached a special pad made of fine brush-like bristles that are directionally oriented towards the back of the skis. These pads grip the snow when you push back, but allow for some sliding in the forward direction. Combined with a free-heel snowshoe binding and snazzy quick-release adjustable stocks, these trekking skis provide a profound walking function several times more effective than the waxless cross country skis I've used.

Modeling the blue directional pad and the unique free-heel snowboard binding.

How does I ski hike?

To test them out, we headed out to a local trail through the mountains. Our guides were experienced snowshoers and were wearing standard snowshoes, but they had never seen the trekking skis we were testing. They were merely there to guide us through the path. As the only person with cross country ski experience, I took the vanguard and headed up the steep narrow path first behind the snowshoe-equipped guide.

At the start of the hill, and already a great view of Yunoshima.

These trekking skis are amazing! The brush bristles on the pads grab on the snow so well that you can stroll up a slope of almost 30 degrees without slipping back! Try that on waxless xc skis! An added bonus is that the directional pads still provide some grip in the forward direction too, so while you won't be gliding across the flats very easily, you can descend in a controlled manner even on a steep straight path. I'm not a very experienced alpine skier, but even I descended through the trees with relative ease. I can imagine these things being a godsend for backcountry skiers/snowshoers or as training wheels for beginner alpine skiers.

While they are much easier than any other ski out there, they're still not easy enough to just slap on anyone and lead them up a mountain. The path we were on was a narrow snow-covered hiking trail, and some parts even had stairs! Almost all the other participants had no ski experience whatsoever (most were from southeast Asia, where snow doesn't fall), so there was a lot of floundering to get up the steeper portions of the trail. We in the front pack (4 US ALTs and a Korean CIR) reached the peak, and sat around waiting for 20 minutes for the rest of the pack to join up (which is how we filmed the video above). Our photographer from Hokkaido went on a nice rant about Asian girls and their inability at snow sports.

After taking a few pictures at the top, we now had the problem of getting back down the mountain. We were already late for lunch because of the stragglers, so the only option was to go back down the way we came. All the Asian girls freaked out and discussed what to do, while the ALTs nonchalantly started trudging back. The slide down was extremely fun even though it was steep, lined with trees, narrow, and with hairpin turns at every corner. The worst part was probably just the wait at the bottom, since everyone else decided to take their skis off and walk down. The organizers learned from their misjudgement, and the group after us took a leisurely stroll on a flat, wide trail around a lake instead.

The vanguard group and the Aussie-accent photographer.

After waiting half an hour for the group to reassemble and going back to eat lunch, we started our second activity: basket weaving! Called つる細工 tsuruzaiku in Japanese, it's essentially a craft for making baskets or furniture similar to wicker. You start out with many long strands of stiff wooden fibers, softened by being soaked in water. This reminded me of the joke we always made about useless "underwater basket weaving" classes, when in fact weaving a basket underwater would actually keep the fibers soft enough to manipulate!

Pre-soaked flexible wooden shafts

Anyways, several local ladies helped us out and taught us to make a small basket. Basket weaving may seem easy, but it's actually very time consuming and rough on the hands. You need to make sure the fibers don't dry out, so you're constantly spraying more water and gripping the rough wooden strands with damp hands. After about an hour and a half of weaving I had only managed to make a very small basket, maybe big enough for one large Aomori apple.

While chatting with the ladies, I learned that tsuruzaiku is a dying art. It's getting harder and harder to obtain the weaving materials, as most of it comes from southeast Asia now. Also, young people don't bother to learn it because they're always busy with school or would rather play video games. I can imagine that it's hard to get the motivation to spend hours weaving a small basket when you can just buy one at the local dollar store. It's a beautiful and interesting art, but sadly one that doesn't seem to have much of a future, at least here in Japan.

After everything was over, we all took a short bath at Yu~sa on the fifth floor onsen before heading back to Aomori City. With only 3 males in the group, the men's side felt like we'd reserved the whole place to ourselves. While soaking, we daydreamed about what it must be like on the crowded women's side filled with upwards of 15 foreign exchange college girls...

Anyways, that's all for this time, but I'm looking forward to all the interesting places I'll go to in the next trips! See you next time!

先週末、また留学生たちと国際交流会の旅行に行ってしまいました。もうたくさんの交流会の遊びに行ったから、このままはもう大家族と一緒に旅行するようです。

というわけで、今回の場所は浅虫温泉でした。青森市から東方面に進むと１０ｋｍだけです。まえはとても立派なにぎやかな温泉町でしたが、最近は色んな理由のせいで少し静かになりました。それでも、青森市民に極楽のところです。忘年会のにとてもポピュラー！

僕らには目的は文化体験、伝統的でも最近でも。最初の体験はスノーシューだと言われました。昔々、青森県民は交通のためにスノーシューをつるに作る必要でした。最近、冬でも山登りたい方はまだスノーシューを使っているが、今のモダンスノーシューはプラスチックやアルミから作られました。

 意外と私たちはスノーシューをしなかった。BLUE MORISという会社の代表が面白くて新しい道具を貸してくれました。BLUE MORISのことを聞とあるきがしたが、じつは合浦公園の貸し出し歩くスキーを作った会社です。

この新しい道具って？トレッキングスキーと言うものです。ベースはスキーボードみたいな短いスキーです。その下にマイクラッシのような特別なパッドが張ってあります。歩くときはこのパッドが雪にくっくっ付きますが、すべるときはそんなに邪魔をしない。歩くスキーと同じコンセプトだけど、この方がずっと効果的です！

近所の山道にためしにいきました。 スノーシューにはいっていたガイドさんが道案内して、私だけがクロースカントリースキーの経験ありましたので先に進みました。

トレッキングスキーすげい～～！ 下のパッドがちゃんとくっ付いて急坂でも滑らない！前にも進めるが、パッドが少しブレーキつけるのでスピードが出ないし、コントロールが楽です。「山登りしたいだけどスノーシューがゆっくりで楽しくない」と思う人や「スキーやりたいだけどスピードこわい！」と思う人にBLUE MORISのトレッキングスキーおすすめです！

使いやすいでも、トレッキングスキーは誰でもすぐ山登りのために使えるわけではない。 私たちが行ったところが元は暖かい季節のハイキングトレールで、ある所に階段もありました！初心者には少しレベル高すぎて、ほとんどの参加者に奮闘でした。なかなかできる５人のJETの皆さんがずっとほかの留学生を待っていた。

それで、遅い人のせいでつい昼ごはんの時間になりました、どうやってやまを降りるかみんなが悩んでいた。私だけがスキー経験ありましたから、一人で楽しく滑って降りましたが、安全ため、ほかの人がスキーをはずして歩いて降りました。やはりトレッキングスキーはスキーをする人に楽ですが、スキー経験がない人にまだ難しいみたい。ガイドさんたちが考え直し、つぎのグループを違うコースに案内したそうです。

昼ごはんを食べた後、次の活動に進みました。つる細工ということはぬれたつるを使ってバスケットを作ることです。英語の"wicker"「ウィッカー」という細工に近いと思います。

とにかく、二人のおばさんが教えてくれました。つる細工がやさしそうなんだでど、思ったよりつかれるや。つるが乾いたら硬くなるから、すっとじめじめの手でがんばらなきゃ！そしてかなり時間かかります。一時間半後、小さいバスケットしか作れなかった、一個の大きい青森りんごのサイズくらい。

作りながら二人のおばさんと喋ると、つる細工をやる人が少なくなっていると気づきました。原料を手に入れるのは難しいし、若者がいつも勉強、ゲームとか夢中しているし、￥１００ショップで買えたら作る必要もない。面白くて美しいアートなんだけど、未来はどうなるでしょう？

せっかく浅虫温泉に来たから、帰る前に少しだけ温泉に入りました。小さいけどいい景色が見える「ゆ～さ」の五階の銭湯に男性３人女性１５人以上。男の部分は貸切のようで、ゆでながら「女性の部分はきっと込んでいてにぎやかだろうね～」と妄想しちうよねぇ。

今回で終わりなんですけど、次の交流会旅行たんしみだね！