Sakura, Tochigi

Rice fields stretch north from the edge of the Kanto Plain, and the land flattens almost imperceptibly before rising into low hills where Kitsure River bends. This is Sakura City in Tochigi, assembled from two former towns — Ujiie and Kitsuregawa — whose separate histories still run in parallel: one a post-town on a transit corridor, the other a castle town shaped by descendants of the Ashikaga clan.

Kitsuregawa Onsen sits quietly in that hilly section, a cluster of bath facilities including Kampo no Yado, where the water draws little fanfare but steady local use. Nearby, Omaru-yama Park occupies the site of Kitsuregawa Castle, and Ryukoji temple holds the graves of successive generations of the Ashikaga line. The Kitsuregawa Shrine, founded in the sixteenth century, is known for its Tenno Festival and its rough, lurching mikoshi procession — the kind of festival energy that belongs to the town rather than to any tourist calendar.

At the Sakura City Museum, works by Arai Kanpo, a modern Japanese-style painter, are kept and displayed. The roadside station Michi-no-Eki Kitsuregawa stocks local produce alongside the area's two unlikely specialties: onsen-pan, bread made using hot spring water, and rainbow ice cream, whose colors are more vivid than any explanation justifies. Both are ordinary enough to eat standing at a counter, which is exactly how they are meant to be eaten.