Today I'm going to take you guys on an adventure through Yamagata prefecture.

We're going to be visiting some very famous resorts and learning a lot about them and I think it's going to be amazing.

So let's go as one of the most seismically active countries in the world.

Japan is home to over 3000 onsen areas and the mountainous region of Yamagata prefecture in the North has a reputation for being blessed with some of the best hot springs in the country.

Today, we're going on a trip through the villages of Zao and Kami No, Yama as we test out four different types of baths.

Taste some of the local specialties and experience the stunning winter scenery and our first stop on our journey is Zao Onsen village, although most well known for its beautiful ski slopes, zombies or you will find the oldest Onsen baths in Yamagata Prefecture with a history dating back over 1900 years.

The springs of how are known for their unique mineral makeup, which many on sunbathers claim can improve your skin and actually heal wounds.

Were lucky to be joined by Hiromi Ito today, a local guide who will hop in the bath with us and explain what makes his own son water so special, Very special.

Very, something really interesting.

I want to tell you guys.

So the acidic bath is good for refreshing your skin affiliation.

But later on we're going to go to a very alkaline bath first.

It's really nice to enter a bath like this here in and then head over to the alkaline bath to replenish your skin with moisture.

All right.

It's time for a little snack break.

I'm getting a little hungry.

There's actually a local specialty here in south called Egham Oki.

But it's so popular that you have to make sure you go out to a little shop and buy it during the morning or they will all sell out.

But I will.

I was able to get some so check these out.

They're really pretty.

I've actually never seen it before.

I've seen something similar.

The little golden things on top of the mochi are apparently rice.

So the proper way to eat.

Egham Oki is to just pick up the leaf like this and bite it.

Mm hmm.

It's quite soft mochi, which is really nice.

You can tell they're super fresh.

Yeah, these are super yummy.

I can see why they're really famous.

So if you come up to try and grab yourself some before they sell out.

Alright, we're back outside into the snow.

I'm actually taking you guys through town a little bit for about a five minute walk.

I want to show you another option that you have for baths here.

So, Enzo.

Onsen town, there are three public baths that can be used even if you're not staying overnight at any of the deal con.

You can just pay a few dollars and hop in and enjoy the baths out here.

Very popular with the locals.

Look at how much snow it snowed so much today.

These are not good shoes.

So this is a hand bath.

Okay here we are, the public bath.

So you walk up here and you put in your coins, there's no staff here to take your money.

They trust you, they trust that you'll put your $2 in there.

This is the female side and boys are over there.

So inside each own saying you can usually find a plaque like this on the wall that tells you about all the different minerals that are in the water and the exact content, the exact amount of each one.

So it's a little indoor bath.

I was thinking it was going to be outdoors.

It's quite spacious.

So after about a five minute stroll from the previous bath we were in.

I found another one and it's so pretty.

It kind of looks like a little shrine or something after a slightly dangerous drive down the road.

It took about 30 to 40 minutes.

Um and I've arrived at my Yukon for the night.

It's super pretty.

I'll show you guys the room after dinner.

I've got this private room all to myself and yeah, I think they're bringing the food in now smells amazing stuff here are so friendly.

So talkative.

I feel like people in quite, quite friendly and outgoing.

But she taught me a lot about the food here and she said that the cognac.

Ooh is like one of the main of Yamagata and you can see they've prepared it like sashimi basically.

Once you put the sauce on it does taste like like a Maduro sashimi.

This is so nice right now because that was so chilly from being on the snow so long and all the foods are nice and warm and yeah, so I'm going to enjoy my dinner and then I'll take you guys around my room later.

It's pretty cool.

There's one interesting feature about it that you will see later.

Great quick room tour time because I'm gonna hop in the bath soon here.

But this is the main room.

It's quite spacious, huge bed.

It looks really comfy.

Hopefully it's as comfy as it looks.

All of Yukon are pretty much the same.

There's always like a little area for eating your snacks and drinking tea.

But the best part is this, it's a heated carpet.

It's so nice.

When I came in they already had it all heated up for me.

So I've just been lying on this all evening and through this store is actually entrance.

I didn't start in here because it's freezing cold.

There's no air con in here.

So it's super cold but nothing too exciting in here.

This is the sink and toilet area.

There's no shower or bath area at first.

I was like no I have to share with people.

I hate doing that.

But no, just wait there's actually a secret bath outside.

How cool is that?

Look at it out in the snow.

It's so cold out here but it's so pretty.

I can't believe I have a bath all to myself.

And the shower is also out here which will be very cold in the morning when I wash my hair but I can't complain because look how gorgeous that bath is.

Let's get in and try it out.

Hopefully it's not too hot.

So we're currently at Kami No Yama area and the water here is the exact opposite it to what it is in the sentences that were in earlier.

So that water is super acidic.

Whereas this water, as you can see is perfectly clear and it's very alkaline.

The water here in camino.

Yama is good for moisturizing your skin.

So it said that you're supposed to visit johnson first to exfoliate your whole body and then make the trip down here.

It's only like a 30 40 minute drive and enter the answer in here and moisturize your skin So it's really cool that there are two Ensign in the area in Yamagata here.

The pair really well together and are great for your skin.

We got really lucky with this huge snowfall that happened just before my trip.

Made the adventure up here a little treacherous but I would say it was well worth it because the views have just been beautiful tomorrow.

We're gonna be exploring the camino.

Yama area around here.

So I will enjoy my bath, have a good sleep hopefully and I will see you guys bright and early tomorrow morning, Good night.

How pretty is this place?

So this is called And the reason for that the Neo con that we stayed at last night.

They own this mountain.

They purchased this land, they cleared the plants that were originally on it and planted a whole bunch of Sakura.

So in the spring there are so many flowers blooming here and they definitely need to come back and see it because it sounds really amazing but it's equally is pretty in the winter.

Check it out so nice and the snow is nice and powdery.

It's nice to walk in walking to amazing.

Look at the view.

You couldn't ask for a more beautiful view.

Wow!

So Yamagata Prefecture is famous for a lot of fruit.

As you're driving through the prefecture, you'll see lots of orchards and we've come to a place called Fruit Land.

Apparently they have four shops throughout Yamagata and they're very famous for their fruit and their fruit par phase.

So if you come into their shop they will have a daily parfait and each time you come in, the ingredients will change depending on which fruits are in season.

So here is today's fruit parfait featuring shine muscat which are these really nice green grapes that you need to try if you come to Japan you can't find anything like them in.

Canada.

They're so good.

I've got myself a selection of local fruits here that I'm gonna try.

I'm mostly excited for the persimmon because I've heard about how the persimmons of this area are super sweet because of the cold weather.

Apparently strawberries are actually in season in the winter in japan and they use them for christmas cake.

These are the shine muscat I was talking about, they're probably one of my top three favorite fruits.

They're so juicy and so sweet and it kind of tastes like cotton candy.

Mm so good.

Alright guys, I'm gonna finish my fruit plate here and then I think we're heading to another on site Next.

So this is camino, Yama Castle Foot Bath area and while you're sitting with your feet in the water you can see a really nice view of the whole city.

It's so gorgeous and they have a little shop down at the bottom there that sells local foods.

They've got some warm stuff and we ordered some tomato that's a lot of karoshi.

She's put on there.

That's going to be very very spicy.

But mm so I'm having lunch here at Umeda which is a really popular restaurant in the area.

If you want to get a reservation here, you should do it early.

They request that you do it by phone so it might be a little difficult for some of you guys but the food looks absolutely amazing and I can see why it's so popular.

So this is a macrobiotic restaurant.

I honestly have no idea what that meant.

So I googled it a little bit and apparently it just means that it's all very healthy whole foods that are locally grown, no pesticides, no additives.

It's flavored with really simple things like salt, pepper, miso paste like that.

So basically it's just a very healthy meal using local ingredients and it just looks and smells so amazing.

So I'm gonna dig in now and see how it tastes.

This one looks like a wagon.

She, to me, I'm very intrigued by this one.

Oh, just like usual.

Mm I think it was a sweet potato but it was flavored with yuzu so it kind of tastes like candy.

The owner told me that 80% of the ingredients they use are grown by their family.

That's amazing.

All the vegetables are super local and you can tell they're really, really fresh.

They're really tasty.

They also have a lot of sweets um which is one of my favorite japanese series.

They have some smoothies.

Lots of traditional japanese stuff that's kind of tweaked to fit a macrobiotic diet.

Very cool.

I wanted to bring you guys to one last season before I make the trip back to Morioka.

This is also in the camino Yama area.

So as you can see the water is clear and lichens.

Oh and this is supposed to be a public bath.

Normally there would be lots of other people in here with me.