Yamagata Bus Tour 4 (Mogami River (最上川))

Right before lunch, our bus stopped at New Yamazaki Daily Store Yamagata Shiraitonotaki for the tour guide to collect the lunch boxes and for our toilet break.

There, we got a nice of a waterfall behind us.

Bento lunch was a nice warm one and we immediately ate it once we received it.

After lunch, we enjoyed a boat ride along Mogami River (最上川). 

We all squeezed into this boat and listened to some stories about the place.

The sell coffee on the boat and apparently it was really good so J bought one too.

The guy who was guiding us was apparently the writer of this book!

I imagined that the view will be better when the hill is covered in snow. 

Yamagata Bus Tour 3 (Ginzan Onsen)

Day 2 of the bus tour

We were back in the same hall where we had dinner for breakfast.

Grilled saba was served for breakfast.

Once again, the food was really good. We ate everything except the natto which we offered to the guests next to us.

The first stop of the day was Ginzan Onsen.

The bus stopped somewhere further up and we had to walk down.

With not much snow that winter, the place looked different from the pictures that were posted in stations in Tokyo.

Onsen here must be good. As you can see, the heat from the onsen is causing all the smoke in these pictures.

There is also an area where you can enjoy foot onsen for free.

The area is pretty small. There are several bridges that connects the buildings on both sides.

And this row of shops that you can see in this picture is basically it.

I guess if you really want to enjoy this area. You need to come and stay at the ryokan here to enjoy the onsen in the middle of winter. As in all the pictures that I have seen, this place looks amazing covered in snow.

Once you pass the row of shops in the picture above, you will read this waterfall.

There is also a public toilet nearby and this tunnel.

We had 1 hour of free time here and that was seriously too much as there is nothing much to see in this area. 

It was slightly underwhelming for me as I have always wanted to visit, but to see it in person and then realizing that this is all there is to it. It sort of makes sense why most pictures that you see of Ginzan Onsen used in promoting the area looks the same. This is because the pictures all show the same view.

One of the reason why I picked this tour was also because it had Ginzan Onsen on it and this was one of the places that I really wanted to visit!

On the way back to the bus, we spotted this interesting looking vending machine that was covered in this wooden box. I guess it was made this way to blend in with the area that it was in. 

Made it back up to the top f the hill where the bus was parked.

The view from here is really nice. I saw some pictures of people taking their pre-wedding pictures during winter and the pictures looked amazing!

Yamagata Bus Tour 2 (Hotel View Kuroda (ホテルビューくろだ))

For this trip, our hotel for both nights was Hotel View Kuroda (ホテルビューくろだ).

Website: https://www.view-kuroda.com/

There is a big bathtub in the bathroom.

We got a deluxe twin room and the beds were big and comfortable.

There are even 2 chairs for us to chill on in the room.

As there was still some time till dinner, we decided to explore around the area.

The hotel is in a small quiet area in Tendo, Yamagata. I've only been in the area for work but not for leisure in the past. It was nice to finally be able to come for travel.

This hotel is run by a family. When we arrived, we were served juice by the owner's 2 daughters. Outside the dinner hall, there is this cute rabbit decoration thing on display.

For the 1st night, we have shabu-shabu for dinner.

My entire tour group was seated in this room that has 2 long row of tables.

Menu, showing what was served for dinner.

Overall, the food was delicious and I was satisfied with the amount of food served.

After dinner, we decided to look around at the hotel's facilities. 

There is a huge seating area near the lobby for guests.

Tendo is famous for Shogi as about 90% of all Japanese Shogi pieces are made in Tendo.

There is even an area for Shogi in the hotel lobby.

And in the room, we are served these shogi pieces, which are actually snacks to go with tea. 

At night, we snacked on these zunda shake bars which we bought earlier in the day at the souvenir shop and these were sooo good! Unfortunately, we didn't see this anywhere else after that and were unable to get more.

Next time, I will buy more as souvenirs too.

Yamagata Bus Tour 1

Yes, we are getting a big breakfast at Mcd at 7am in the morning.

As the box cover says, a big breakfast is a great start to your day.

Breakfast time as we wait for our turn to board the bus.

Finally on the bus!

Today, we are going to Yamagata.

The weather was super nice that day and the sky was so blue.

We got picked up at 8.10am and our first stop is Matsushima (松島) at Miyagi-ken.

As the journey was long, we were provided with a bento box for lunch on the bus.

It is a inari bento with beans, kanpyo, hijiki seaweed and sesame.

After lunch, we had a short toilet break. We were so lucky that the weather here was good too.

At Matsushima, we had 90 mins to explore around by ourselves.

This here is the Godaido Temple.

This area here must be a popular tourist spot as there were so many other travel buses there.

When the weather is nice, every single picture that you takes look good.

Matsushima has one of the top 3 most scenic spot in Japan according to this sign.

There are 2 famous temples in the area:  1. Zuiganji Temple; 2. Etsuin Temple.

The grounds are huge is a nice area to walk around.

There are some shops nearby too.

As we still had some time to spare, we went to this shop where we got to grill our own fish cake.

It was a pretty nice experience, though the grilling area does get crowded and you will have to wait for your turn.

We also got to try the famous zunda shake there. Zunda is a specialty of Sendai and the souvenir shop here sells zunda snacks too. 

In the background of this picture is the Matsushima Castle.

Once back on the bus, we were each given a small snack by the tour guide.

When you are on a bus tour, sometimes you do get small little snacks from the tour company.