Daruma Drama

 Friday, April 10, 2026

Today we rode the Hokuriku Shinkansen from Tokyo Station to Takasaki Station. Before leaving the hotel we shipped one bag to the next destination after Takasaki and we arranged for the hotel to store two bags. It was such a pleasure to be traveling with only one carry-on and one “personal item” each. 

How far out of Tokyo do you have to go until you get to a place where the menus don’t have an English version and most of the people don’t speak English?

The answer is 53 minutes (if you go somewhere that is not a major tourist destination). Our train ride was 53 minutes, at bullet train speed (162 mph).

The population of Takasaki is about 372,000. It’s a commercial and transportation hub for the surrounding region. It’s not crowded like Tokyo. Takasaki’s claim to fame is the daruma. More about that in a bit.

. . .

We were ready for lunch so we picked a random restaurant at the station and used our phones to translate the menu. I didn’t find out the name of the restaurant until our last day in Takasaki when we happened upon it again. It was something like Oginoya Gunma No Daidokoro (Gunma’s Kitchen). Gunma is the prefecture that Takasaki is in. A prefecture is comparable to a state in the US, but I think it sounds a little more “official,” perhaps a little more bureaucratic.

I ordered some kind of soup in a big bowl with thinly sliced meat, lettuce, and local noodles which may have been udon. We were looking to try out local specialties, and that’s what we got. The soup was heavenly, especially the broth, but I couldn’t finish such a large bowl. It also came with rice (I know, rice and noodles) and some very interesting pickles. Ken ordered some kind of local specialty that came in a clay pot. It had simmered mountain vegetables, chicken, a hard-boiled quail egg, some big black mushrooms (possibly kikurage), a dried apricot, bamboo shoots, and a different kind of local noodle, probably okkirikomi.  It came with rice and salad, and a little clear plastic box of pickles with a dollop of mayo. This is where I really need pictures. It was all just wonderful. As we left I said “Oishi” to the woman who came out from the kitchen to see us off. It is one of about 10 Japanese words I know and means “delicious.” You should have seen how she kvelled (not a Japanese word).

We checked into our hotel, the Coco Grand, after lunch. It was very close to the train station, but confusing to find because it started on the second floor and because Japan doesn't use the kind of street addresses most of the western world uses. Once we found it, we figured out how to use the elevated walkway directly from the hotel’s lobby Takasaki Station, about a 3- or 4- minute walk. The hotel staff was incredibly helpful and welcoming and we loved the hotel despite the dated look of our room. The hotel management had put a lot of thought into making the hotel as comfortable and home-like as possible. It was very clean and well-stocked with every amenity you could possibly want. The hotel had a “public” bath, but we had an amazing soaking tub in our room and did not use the public bath. (In this case, I think public meant that the bath was available to all the hotel guests, but not to the general public, so “communal” might be a better description. Come to think of it, “bath” is not the right word either. You are expected to wash before using the public bath. The purpose of the public bath is to soak in really hot water. Maybe it should be called a “communal soaking experience.”

We decided to go to the Takasaki Museum of Art. It was near the station and we walked there in 10 or 15 minutes. Despite having checked on the opening hours of the museum, we discovered that it would be closed for at least a week while the staff set up a new exhibit.

Plan B was to go to the Shorinzan Temple, a Zen Buddhist temple built in the foothills of the mountains near Takasaki in 1692. Shorinzan is considered the birthplace of the daruma doll.

Take a look at Shorinzan here

It was a peaceful, meditative place. It was enough out of the way that it was not beseiged by hordes of noisy tourists. 

Here’s the daruma story:

A daruma is a hollow, round doll modeled after Bodhidharma, the founder of Zen Buddhism. Daruma are believed ti bring good luck, especially in connection with perseverance and achieving goals. When someone buys or receives a daruma, the eyes are white and blank. When the owner sets a goal for himself/herself, they color in a pupil in one eye. When the goal has been reached the second eye is colored in. At the end of a year, the daruma are taken back to the temple they came from and burned. New daruma are purchased and new goals are set.

I liked the idea that the dolls encourage people to set and achieve goals. They are whimsical looking, but they are full of symbolism. Each one is hand painted ans a little different from the next one. Nothing bad will happen if you don’t achieve your goal after painting one of the eyes. It’s not a contract, just a reminder. I think that’s why daruma are so appealing to the Japanese public, and why you see them everywhere. “Iconic” is a word that has been overused in the last decade or two (and I am one f the ones who overuses it), but daruma are truly iconic here in Japan, and most especially in Takasaki. In fact we saw thousands of them in shops at the train station as soon as we arrived here.

Today’s fabric is sobakawa. The more traditional hotels in Japan, including the Coco Grand, place two pillows on the bed for each guest. One is pretty standard, and the other one feels strange on at least one side. You can feel a lot of hard little pellets. It turns out that these are buckwheat hulls, a/k/a sobakawa. buckwheat is grown around here and is used to make soba, a very popular type of noodle in this region. Is it a stretch to call this a fabric? Read the Wikipedia article on “Nonwoven Fabric” and see if that helps. I think if you look at how something functions as well as how it is made, you may be willing to call sobakawa a fabric.

Shabbat Shalom!