When I signed up for a winter tour in Tohoku, I told everyone I was going snowshoeing. I was ready to explore snow monsters, drift-covered trails, and vast mountain landscapes – all of which happened. But the tour ended up being so much more, from walking up 1,000 steps to Yamadera Temple to admiring rows and rows of traditional armless kokeshi dolls. I may have gone for the snow, but Tohoku winter travel offers so much more.

If you’re interested in the snowshoeing part of the tour, including conditions, difficulty, and our daily experiences with small village life in Tohoku, check out my post on snowshoeing with Walk Japan.

Beyond the Trail: Temples and Traditions

I booked my snowshoe adventure through a company called Walk Japan – and with “walk” right there in the name, I thought I knew what to expect. But it turns out that the organization also has a deep commitment to the people and culture of Japan. Starting almost from day one, we learned how to spot the differences between shrines (Shinto) …

… and temples (Buddhist) …

… and how to behave properly in each.

We also learned about regional traditions, including a winter festival that features tying straw to small saplings to create a display of bonfires across the snowy landscape.

Multiple places greeted us with hina doll displays, set out to celebrate Girl’s Day every year in March.

These dolls, usually said to represent the empress, emperor, and their attendants, are dressed in costumes of Japan’s Heian period, a time known for its art, poetry, and literature.

Mountain Muses: Arts, Crafts, and Culture

Speaking of poetry, the mountains of Tohoku have long influenced Japanese writers. The most famous of these was Matsuo Bashō, a seventeenth-century itinerant who is now considered the country’s greatest haiku master. Our tour took us briefly in his footsteps, and we were surprised by a visit from a Bashō-and-his-disciple reenactment team.

We saw examples of local arts and crafts everywhere we went – in ryokans, tiny restaurants, and even train stations. The most notable of these were a range of paper arts …

… and stunning textiles.

One unexpected highlight had to be the kokeshi dolls for which Tohoku is famous, handmade from wood and a bit of paint. These dolls have been around for hundreds of years, and if you know your kokeshi, you can even identify them by specific region.

I’m sure I would have seen some of these things for sale in gift shops had I been on my own, but I would not have known anything about them. Having a guide and local people explain their stories and significance made all the difference.

Tohoku in Winter: Onsen Evenings and Ryokan Stays

Tohoku’s hundreds of onsens have a long history, slowly shifting from religious purification and healing sites to tourist destinations. And at the end of a hard day of snowshoeing, you’ll be glad to sink into a warm pool or tub.

There’s so much hot water here that small towns use it to keep the streets free of ice. And we had true onsen eggs, cooked just outside our ryokan door, with our dinner.

I should note that the onsens ranged in style and quality, from super-local affairs that reminded me of old school gyms and posh-looking spas with cedar and views of the mountains. Our accommodations varied as well. With one somewhat grand exception, we stayed in small, quiet places off the beaten path (that tall building there is our hotel).

Our rooms were clean, tidy, and functional …

… with beds most often laid out on the floor.

We generally stayed in our ryokans or hotels in the evening, appreciating the slower pace that seems to come with small wintertime villages. After each day in the snow, I thoroughly enjoyed visiting the onsen, changing into my yukata, and lingering over meals with the group.

Eat Japan

Our Walk Japan tour guide told us that people jokingly call the company “Eat Japan,” and it’s easy to see why. Many meals are more like banquets, the Japanese equivalents of US Thanksgiving dinners. You’ll have more than your fill of small salads, soup, tempura, sushi – and that’s all before the main course appears.

Everything is elegantly presented, of course.

We especially appreciated the opportunities to sample local specialties, like soba noodles and individual winter hot pots. One of my favorite discoveries was the assortment of local pickles served at nearly every meal, made with seasonal vegetables (and even cherries).

Our evenings also involved samples of local alcohol, usually sake.

We never went hungry – we bought snacks for the bus, sampled all sorts of local goodies at rest stops, and enjoyed ice cream at tiny, out of the way spots.

If you go, make sure to seek out a pack of Zaoh Raisin Sand cookies (I love both the biscuit and the packaging, which promises “choice raisins … sandwiched in between cookies baked elaborately with fresh milk”). Who doesn’t want an elaborately baked cookie?

Icons of Tohoku

The tour wasn’t all about snowshoeing, tiny villages, and eating – we also visited a variety of Tohoku sightseeing highlights. Arguably the most famous was Ginzan Onsen, known for its photograph-worthy historic buildings lining a rushing canal.

We hit Ginzan in its very worst weather: cold rain verging on freezing rain, plus a bit of wind thrown in. From an aesthetic standpoint, it’s easy to see why Instagrammers rush here on better days. But the whole place felt a bit touristy for my tastes, like a town that’s constantly posting for postcard perfection.

For a more culturally significant experience, nothing we saw beats Yamadera, a temple set high up in the mountainside. You have to walk up 1,000 steps to get to the top, which is no mean feat – but you can catch your breath looking at statues, carvings, and views along the way.

I always marvel at monks who strike out to build communities in the tallest mountains (check out the Greek equivalent in even-more-precarious Meteora). True clarity of purpose often seems to come from personal deprivation away from the rest of the world.

Not far from the Yamadera mountaintops, we rode the lifts up Mount Zao – a skiing and snowboarding mecca – to wander the forests and trails on our snowshoes.

If you want powder-perfect snow and great views, Zao should be on your wintertime list.

Towns of Tohoku

In the foothills of Mount Zao, we wandered through the small town of Kaminoyama, home to the reconstructed Kaminoyama Castle (the original was destroyed in 1692).

Even more memorable – mostly because it was so unexpected – was our visit to Kaminoyama’s hermitage: Harusame-an.

It was here that an exiled Zen monk, Takuan Soho, lived in the 1630s and worked to master the art of radish pickling. You can now visit this modest house to see the birthplace of takuan, or pickled yellow daikon.

As a side note, Kaminoyama (population roughly 25,000) is a lovely little place to stay and poke around. It also won my award for best public restroom signage of the trip.

The largest city we visited, in contrast, was Sakata (I’ll have a blog post about the town coming soon). With a population of around 98,000, Sakata felt positively enormous compared to our previous adventures. There’s a lot to see and do there, including a walk past the now-iconic 1893 Sankyo-soko Rice Storehouses.

If you visit, don’t miss a stop by the Sanno Club to see the strings of handmade kasafuku ornaments that fill the second-floor display. The museum housed here helps to preserve the tradition of making these local charms, each made to bring luck or preserve against evil.

One of the things I ended up loving the most about this trip was how much variety it offered. Snowshoeing and onsens, yes – the Tohoku Hot Spring Snow Tour billing is right on target – but it’s also religion and food, crafts and culture. I appreciated being able to see and learn so much in just a week. And I would very happily go back.