"How come did you start the pension?"
"Well, 50 years has passed since we started. When we decided to build a pension, our land was beyond the river. Due to a sharp slope of the land, we couldn't build a pension. So we rented a land here and started lodging."
"When you run the business, are there any particular things?"
"When we worry about everything, we feel tired. So we behave ourselves naturally. Some of our guests feel good for our natural service."
"Where did your guests come from mostly?"
"Let me see, from Tokyo, Kanagawa, Nagoya and Saitama, mostly from the Kanto district. Some guests come here for fishing and some are for having a year-end party."
"Could you tell me the dishes you serve?"
"Mostly dishes prepared from wild plants. In early spring, we go to pick butterbur flowers and field horsetails by ourselves and preserve them as food boiled down in soy for one year. We make vinegared dishes using wasabis (Japanese horseradish) and udos (Aralia cordata). We go to get them by ourselves. We serve sweet-boiled trout or ayu (Japanese river sermon), or broiled ones with salt. Some other dishes, such as a pot-steamed hotchpotch, sliced raw oceanic bonitos which were freezed."
It is a very unique dish of sliced raw fishes. Guests love them because the raw fishes melt in the mouse. One dish named a "Rosebay noodle" is one on which a ground yam, quail egg, bamboo sprouts and edible wild plants were put. They serve Japanese traditional dishes. For guests who stay for two days or more, a tempura of edible wild plants is also served. They would like to serve hot meals for guests, but they cannot do that on the first day because they are busy. There are some guests who prefer the same dishes for 30 years. Some of the frequent visitors request the former dishes if we change the menu.
Next, tell me about a "Wild boar hot spring".
"When we are building the pension, a stone mason saw a family of 4 wild boars walking across the river. So we named our pension, a "Wild boar hot spring - Rosebay pension". That's why we planted lots of rosebay in the garden and we used to have two wild boars. Now, we don't have any wild boars, but we continue to plant rosebay."
We were surprised to hear about the naming story. We can enjoy the landscape in Osori because the original nature is still there. We can imagine that parent-child wild boars are walking in front of the Wild Boar Hot Spring. After that, Morikawa-san showed us the Hot Spring. There are two indoor bathes and one open-air bath. From the open-air bath, we can see rich green mountains and we feel refresh air from a clear limpid stream of Nishina River. As guests can lock the door of the bathplace, a family can enjoy the bath privately. Nowadays, Morikawa-san tries to decrease the guests so that she can enjoy her hobbies. In the lobby, ceramics and leather bags are decorated in a glass box. Especially, she is taking up a dish with a shape of a wild boar. She also showed us a work of "plastering" that she is learning in Matsuzaki. The pattern is a daffodils and the color is very vivid and beautiful. We think that it is wonderful to enjoy hobbies as a part of individual life. We hope to have lots of hobbies in our life. Now, she has only week-end guests in her pension.
[Return to "KUSAICHIGO Digest][Return to "KUSAICHIGO" Internet Version]
The Rosebay Pension is a simple lodging, but it has an atmosphere of old good times and a heart-warm hospitality that we cannot find in urban areas. The Rosebay Pension was a very cozy place standing for 30 years with the nature of Osori.