Daniel and I took Alan and Sierra to 草津温泉 Kusatsu Onsen in Gunma Prefecture. This is one of Japan’s most famous onsen. It was ranked as the number one onsen during the Edo period. We took trains the whole there again taking advantage of the 青春十八切符. We left on the 5.27am train and arrived at Naganohara Kusatsu guchi station at 1.12pm. From there we took a bus into Kusatsu onsen. We played lots of 4P games on the Nintendo DS – Mario party mini games. Kusatsu is a really cool onsen town. In the centre of town there is a 湯畑 – a hot water field that flows through the middle of the town. There are lots of natural hot springs in the area. We went to two awesome onsens. The Sai no kawara onsen 西の河原露天風呂 which features a huge rotemburo set in a park. It was a really romantic town with lots of little stores that gave away free　まんじゅう. We stayed overnight at a little pension http://www.lun.co.jp/ruhe/which served great meals. The next day we went to大滝乃湯温泉 Ohtaki no yu – another great onsen with an indoor onsen and a rotemburo. The water in Kusatsu is really good quality. It’s sulphurous and is said to have healing qualities. We also saw ゆもみ which is water massage – a method they use to cool down the hot water, becase adding cold water is said to change the water properties of the natural hot springs. I got to have a go at that. Another 9 hours of DS marathon later we made it back. Another お疲れさま weekend.