Ouchijuku Town
| The Good | The Not-So Good |
| Historic preserved town | Difficult to get to |
| Relaxing mountain retreat | Limited activities |
Ouchijuku Town is a restored “post town”, a stop over along old trade routes between the nearby Aizu and Nikko, a popular temple town further south. All the telegraph poles and other signs of modern life have been buried, which allows tourists to experience a more authentic, historical Japan. The specialty here is locally made soba noodles with a freshly cut spring onion, which is to be lightly chomped on while consuming the noodles.
Sights in and around Ouchijuku Town
Ouchijuku Town is very small. When Japan usually doesn’t post Google Maps links using the satellite view, however in Ouchijuku Town’s case, you can see the town is basically everything you can see in the famous shots of the thatches roofs. That is the entire town. This means there isn’t a great deal to see and do. You can walk from one end of the town to the other in 5 minutes. Most of the buildings are either restaurants serving the locally made soba noodles and other traditional set meals, or else trinket stores selling tourist merchandise. There are numerous festivals throughout the year, with the major one being the snow festival in early February. The village is particularly stunning in winter however most of the shops and restaurants are closed outside of peak visitor seasons.
to augment your trip, there are two hot spring areas with numerous hotels and Japanese inns. There are also two inns in the village itself however they are very basic and not worth the time considering the hot spring resorts only 10 minutes away. The village closes at around 4PM so anyone staying overnight will certainly have a very peaceful stay.
Yunokami Onsen – Famous hot spring area with a convenient train stop and bus links to Ouchijuku Town
Ashinomaki Onsen – Another popular, secluded hot spring area only accessible by road. There are buses that leave from Aizu-Wakamatsu Station.
Access to Ouchijuku Town
There is a local train on the Aizu Railroad (not JR) from Aizu-Wakamatsu Station that stops at Yunokami Onsen. From there you take a bus to Ouchijuku Town. Local public buses are available however they do not run at weekends. It is therefore recommended to use the special bus operated just for tourists that runs every day.
You can purchase a return combined train and bus ticket for ¥2200. You can purchase online via a special app (Japanese only) or else at an Aizu Railroad ticket office. The Aizu-Wakamatsu station is JR so while you can get on the train there, you cannot buy the ticket there. The nearest station where you can buy the ticket is Nishi-Wakamatsu. This will get confusing if you have a JR pass are you can enter the station without paying but once you get to Yunokami Onsen Station, they will ask for your non-JR ticket. You can however purchase at Yunokami Onsen station or on the train itself. This is probably the best option.
The timetable is on the Ouchijuku Town official site and also on the bus operators site. The timetable shows a circle route and has 5 buses a day, every day. The last bus is at 15:05. The bus stop at Ouchijuku is here. The guide on the bus will explain about the village and where the bus stop is, however their English is not that great. There is an English pamphlet available that includes a map.
| 1st Dec. to 31st March Bus Timetable | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stop | 1st | 2nd | 3rd | 4th | 5th |
| 1 Yunokami Onsen Station (depart) | 10:20 | 11:20 | 12:10 | 13:35 | 14:45 |
| 2 Ouchijuku Town (depart) | 10:40 | 11:40 | 12:30 | 13:55 | 15:05 |
| 1 Yunokami Onsen Station (arrive) | 11:00 | 12:00 | 12:50 | 14:15 | 15:25 |
As there is a limit number of things to do at Ouchijuku Town, When Japan recommends no more than 2 hours in the village – enough time to eat the famous Spring Onion Soba Noodles and wander up to the viewing point where everyone takes a photo.
stopping at one of the nearby hot spring resorts is highly recommended.
