Last Year Toronto, This Year Kaikake Onsen

On August 4 and 5, my wife and I visited Kaikake Onsen in Niigata Prefecture.

August 4 was my wife’s birthday.

It was both a birthday celebration and our summer holiday together.

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Last year, on August 4, we were in Toronto, Canada.

My wife is a huge fan of Fujii Kaze, and through her enthusiasm, I gradually became a fan as well.

We had traveled there to see him perform.

Watching Fujii Kaze in Toronto on my wife’s birthday made it a particularly memorable day.

This year, we went to Kaikake Onsen in Niigata.

It was a much quieter birthday.

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Before we left, I sent a message to a friend.

“We’re heading to Kaikake Onsen today.”

He replied almost immediately.

“Oh, it looks like Fujii Kaze was just there too.”

He sent me a post from X.

Apparently, Fujii Kaze had visited Kaikake Onsen when he performed at this year’s Fuji Rock Festival.

What an extraordinary coincidence.

Last year, we saw him perform in Toronto.

This year, we spent my wife’s birthday at an onsen he had visited shortly before us.

Of course, we did not actually meet him.

We were not there at the same time.

Still, for the second year in a row, my wife’s birthday somehow became connected to Fujii Kaze.

Perhaps my wife has a special kind of luck.

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Kaikake Onsen is a secluded inn in the mountains near Naeba.

It felt like a private hideaway.

The inn stands at an elevation of approximately 700 meters.

Even in midsummer, the air felt completely different from Tokyo or Chiba. It was cool and comfortable outside.

Check-in began at 2:00 p.m., an hour earlier than at most hotels and inns.

We left our home in Chiba with plenty of time and arrived almost exactly at two.

To our surprise, we were the last guests to arrive.

Everyone else had already checked in.

Perhaps they were all just as eager to get into the hot spring.

Once I entered the water, I understood why.

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The natural spring water at Kaikake Onsen is lukewarm, at around 37 degrees Celsius.

Rather than sitting briefly in very hot water, you soak for a long time in water close to body temperature.

At first, it feels slightly cool.

After a while, however, the temperature begins to feel just right.

I sat in the water without thinking about anything.

The tension slowly left my body.

Even my sense of time began to disappear.

It was pure bliss.

My wife and I have visited many onsen inns together.

Yet there are only a handful that make us think,

“We would really like to stay here again.”

Kaikake Onsen has now become one of them.

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Kaikake Onsen is the name of the hot spring itself.

That made me wonder what the inn was called.

I looked it up.

The inn, too, was simply called Kaikake Onsen.

The spring and the inn seemed inseparable.

Somehow, that felt entirely appropriate for this place.

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I read through some material at the inn and learned about its history.

The earliest written reference to Kaikake Onsen dates back to 1488, during the Muromachi period.

It remained a place of therapeutic bathing for centuries, but a major flood in the early Showa period forced it to close.

It was eventually restored by a former proprietor.

After suffering a retinal hemorrhage, he remembered Kaikake, his hometown, which had long been known as an “onsen for the eyes.”

While continuing to work as a paper wholesaler, he set about reviving the hot spring inn.

His own illness led him back to the hot spring of his childhood, which had nearly been lost.

It was almost as if his ancestors had called him home.

Perhaps it was a kind of destiny.

This was an onsen inn sustained by remarkable determination.

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The following day, we explored the area around Echigo-Yuzawa.

We visited a few scenic places that made us want to stop and take photographs.

Afterward, we went to the New Otani.

Since it was her birthday, my wife had a slice of strawberry shortcake.

I had mango shaved ice.

The cool mountain air.

The lukewarm spring water.

Strawberry shortcake and mango shaved ice.

“Summer in Niigata is wonderful,” we said to each other.

Then we decided,

“Let’s come back.”

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Last year, Toronto.

This year, Kaikake Onsen.

They were completely different places, yet both were somehow connected to Fujii Kaze.

I wonder where we will be, and what we will encounter, on August 4 next year.

That is something else to look forward to.