Takahan Ryokan Takahan Ryokan Takahan Ryokan is an historic ryokan (Japanese inn) located in Yuzawa, Niigata Prefecture, Japan. The inn is over 800 years old. The inn has an onsen (bath) called "Tamago no Yu" (English: egg-water) that is supplied by natural hot springs with a slight amount of sulfur. The inn has approximately 20,000 annual visitors, many of whom visit to soak in Tamago no Yu. The setting for the book "Snow Country" authored by Yasunari Kawabata is based upon Takahan Ryokan's location. The inn has preserved the room that Kawabata stayed and wrote in when he was there, along with
Death in a Strange Country Death in a Strange Country Death in a Strange Country (1993) is the second novel in Donna Leon's Commissario Brunetti mysteries set in Venice and the sequel to "Death at La Fenice" (1992). Early one morning Brunetti is confronted with the body of a young American serviceman fished out of a fetid Venetian canal. All clues point to a mugging, but robbery seems too convenient a motive. Then something incriminating is found in the dead man's flat, and Brunetti becomes convinced that somebody is taking great pains to provide an easy solution to the crime. When he uncovers collusion between