Imaginary Biking: Ima Ichiko edition

139.5 miles.

I passed by an onsen and thought little of it, because there are lots and lots of onsen, but then I noticed that the onsen - Kindaichi Onsen - had its own wikipedia entry. Why is this? Because its zashiki-warashi is famous. What is a zashiki-warashi? According to Wikipedia:

The appearance of this spirit is that of a 5 or 6 year child with bobbed hair and a red face. The child could be either male or female, though recently the zashiki-warashi are often depicted as girls. Zashiki-warashi can be found in well-maintained and preferably large old houses. It is said that once a zashiki-warashi inhabits a house, it brings the residence great fortune; on the other hand, should a zashiki-warashi depart, the domain soon falls into a steep decline.

To attract and maintain a zashiki-warashi in the home, it is said the spirit must be noticed, appreciated and cared for properly, much in the manner one would raise a child, though too much attention may drive it off. As the zashiki-warashi is child-like in nature, it is prone to playing harmless pranks and occasionally causing mischief. They might for instance sit on a guest's futon, turn people's pillows over or cause sounds similar to kagura music to be heard from rooms no one uses. Sometimes they leave little footsteps in ashes. There are different variations as to who can see the zashiki-warashi; usually this is limited to inhabitants of the house, sometimes to children.

Author Kenji Miyazawa wrote two stories about zashiki-warashi: "Matasaburo of the Wind" and "The Story of the Zashiki-Bokko".
In Clamp's manga title xxxHolic, a female Zashiki-Warashi developes a crush on the main character Watanuki.

Those who read Japanese can find out more over here, though I have to say that there's very little that's spooky about the photographs. I am, regardless, suitably impressed. And the Ryokufuso page is great - you can see the zashiki-warashi's huge toy collection.