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Over ten years ago, a friend of mine won helicopter ride tickets in a bingo game, which led me to attend a small local festival in the Minami-Uonuma area.
The helicopter ride was supposed to be the main event, but since the wait was long, I struck up a conversation with a local farmer. He told me that as part of the festivities, they were serving free rice balls made from that year’s freshly harvested Koshihikari rice.
The rice balls were simple—no salt, nothing added. I planned to buy some tonjiru (pork miso soup) from a nearby stall to eat with them. However, the moment I took a bite of that glistening, radiant rice ball, I was so overwhelmed by its deliciousness that I finished it all on the spot, completely forgetting to even order the soup.
That experience taught me that the freshest, most incredible flavors are often found at small, regional festivals. I’ve searched for similar hidden gems ever since, but even in today’s advanced digital age, these hyper-local stories rarely make it into mainstream gourmet guides.
Driven by this, I decided to create “Japan Onsengai Guide.” My goal is to compile information on my favorite hot spring towns while weaving in these precious, small-scale local insights, making them accessible to travelers from all over the world.
| blog name | japan onsengai guide |
| author | つりぺぐ(peg fishing) |
| contact | contact form |
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