Published on May 25th, 2026
On May 23rd and 24th I went on a weekend driving trip with some friends who also own Lotus Emiras. We drove through Yamanashi, up into the mountains of Nagano, and over into Gunma, with an overnight stop in Kusatsu. The whole thing started as a thread on emiraforum.com, if you want to see how it came together.
I didn't want to bloat this post with too many photos. Check the rest of the photos in this photo gallery.
Friday, May 22nd: night in Yamanashi
We were meeting early on Saturday morning at the Futaba service area in Yamanashi, and I really didn't feel like waking up at 4am and spending hours stuck in the Saturday morning traffic to get there in time, so I decided to drive over on Friday evening and spend the night at a hotel nearby instead.
I picked the Konaya hotel, just a few minutes from the meeting point, and made the reservation a few days in advance. On Friday, after I finished work, I grabbed the car and drove there at a relaxed pace.
The hotel had a very beautiful lobby, and the bar looked amazing. Unfortunately it was already closed by the time I got there, so I just walked out to a nearby convenience store to buy something, and then went to bed.
Saturday, May 23rd: Futaba service area to Kusatsu
I woke up early, had breakfast at the hotel, packed my things, and stopped at a gas station nearby to fill up the tank before heading to the Futaba service area.
When I arrived, Nozaki-san (in his white Emira) and Stig were already there. Stig owns an Emira too, but it has been at the workshop since April, after it ran into some issues during a track day at the Suzuka Circuit, so he joined us this weekend in a BMW instead. Nozaki-san had 3D-printed these nice key stands for everybody, and gave one to Stig and one to me. Thanks!
One thing I noticed was how many bikers there were at the service area that morning. It caught my attention because at the time I was still going to driving school to get my motorbike license.
The rest of our friends arrived shortly after, and in the end we were five Emiras and Stig's BMW. The Emiras were getting a lot of attention from the people at the service area, especially some of the tourists. We left not long after, heading for the Obasute service area.
We stopped at Obasute to rest for a bit and have lunch, and I bought a cute little plushie for the dashboard.
Obasute, in Nagano, is best known for its terraced rice fields carved into the mountainside and for the sweeping view over the Zenkoji plain below. It's one of the classic moon-viewing spots in Japan, and the name itself comes from an old local legend. On a clear day the view from up there is fantastic, and this happened to be a clear day.
From there we headed to the Tamamura Honten brewery in Nagano. Everyone bought a few bottles. I don't drink beer, but I got a couple to give away as presents. Tamamura Honten is a long-established sake brewery that also produces the well-known Shiga Kogen Beer craft brand. The building itself is beautiful, and on the second floor there's a window that looks down over the brewing vats.
After that we started climbing up the mountain. We drove up through Shiga Kogen, a highland area that is one of the largest ski resorts in Japan and part of the Jōshin'etsu-kōgen National Park (it hosted several events during the 1998 Nagano Olympics), and past Yokoteyama, one of the peaks up there at around 2,300 meters, known for its views and for having what is said to be the highest bakery in Japan at the top.
We stopped next to the Shibutoge Hotel. Shibu Toge is a mountain pass that sits right on the border between Nagano and Gunma, and the hotel is literally built across the prefectural line. At 2,172 meters, this is the highest point of any national route in Japan. It's also where you find a monument to the nine people who died when a Gunma prefectural disaster-prevention helicopter crashed in these mountains in 2018, while it was checking a trail ahead of the climbing season.
Even though it was late May, there was still snow up there, and for a while we were worried it might not be safe to drive our cars through. It didn't help that there was a thick fog and visibility was really bad. After thinking about it for a bit, we decided to keep going. Once we passed the highest point and started coming down the other side, the snow disappeared and the conditions improved.
From there we drove around the Kusatsu-Shirane caldera towards Kusatsu, along the Asama-Shirane Volcano Route (the Manza Highway). We even did a little bit of light offroading to take a shortcut through a side road past the Tsumagoi Prince Hotel, because the road we were on would have left us too far from Kusatsu.
Once in Kusatsu, five of us were staying at a small hotel near the Yubatake, the "hot water field" in the middle of town where the hot spring water is cooled down and channeled, and which is basically the symbol of Kusatsu. We parked at the hotel and rested a bit after checking in. I only took a short nap, then went out for a walk around the town. The weather was pretty bad, but honestly I think that only improved the atmosphere. We met up again in the early evening for dinner at a local izakaya, and afterwards I went for another stroll before heading back to the hotel to sleep.
Sunday, May 24th: Kusatsu to Karuizawa
The next morning we left Kusatsu separately and arranged to meet at the parking of the 7-Eleven in Naganohara Otsu, at the bottom of National Route 292. There we met up with another of our friends, who had come in his Emira. After some coffee and snacks we set off towards Karuizawa. I split off from the group shortly after that, since I had things to do in the evening and didn't want to get home too late.