For the rest of the trip, we switched over to driving. In the morning, Alex picked up our second rental car and we headed to Kusatsu, famous for its hot springs (onsen). Along the way, we stopped at two waterfalls and a lava field, incredibly beautiful. Then we checked into our next ryokan (where we had a private onsen right in our suite) and walked over to the central square, where the famous Kusatsu Onsen is located. (It's about 800 m walk, because our ryokan was not in the central area.) The Kusatsu Onsen is a very impressive structure, water comes out of the ground extremely hot (and with a strong smell of sulfur) and then cools off in a series of wooden troughs that end with a waterfall! I took photos of it from all sides, then in the evening Alex drove me there again so I could take more photos.
From there, we were planning to go straight to Kusatsu, but waiting for a light at an intersection saw a sign: "Mt. Asama Magma Stone Park, 4 km".
This is the car.
The first waterfall, Ryugaeshi Falls. It is not very popular, which is nice - we were practically alone there.
Second waterfall, Shiraito Waterfall, is much more popular - there are buses of tourists all around. But it is very beautiful and unusual - curtain of water falling into a semicircular basin, which leads to a series of cascades.
Just 4 km? Let's go! (This is the beauty of traveling by car.)
And so very soon we arrived at the lava field left after the eruption of Mount Asama volcano. It is also called Onioshidashi Volcanic Park, for no apparent reason - Japanese seem to like to call the same place by at least two different names.
The place is extremely beautiful, especially on a sunny day in the Fall, with all the foliage! We walked around for about an hour, then drove on to Kusatsu.
The central square in Kusatsu - where the onsen is - and the area around it are jam-packed with people, and it is absolutely impossible to park there. After several unsuccessful attempts, we decided to drive to our ryokan (which was a little less than 1 km away) and ask them if we could leave the car there, even though it was too early to check in. At which point the owner, a very nice woman, said that we could of course leave the car, but that she would check us in right now!
This time, we had a two-level suite, with a living area and private onsen on the first floor, and bedroom with (kind of a) balcony upstairs.
It was located in a separate annex, so getting from it to the main ryokan involved some footwear manipulations, but by then we were quite familiar with the routine and not fazed by it at all.
Then we walked back to the central town square, to Yubatake. There are two words, related but meaning different things: Yubatake is "hot water field" and Yutaki is "hot water waterfall". Here they both are: the photos start with the "field" (where the hot spring emerges from the ground), then show the cooling wooden conduits, and end with the "waterfall" at the opposite end (actually, two waterfalls).
We had dinner at our ryokan...
... then went back to the central onsen to see it lighted up at night. We didn't feel like walking almost 1 km in the cold and dark, so Alex drove and stayed in the car, while I took a few photos.
> Day 16
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