Ota

Ōta (太田) is a city in Gunma.

Tourist information site
The local tourist association has a partly bilingual guide site.

Get in
Ota is located on the Tobu's Isesaki Line.

It is approximately 80 kilometers from Tokyo and 30 kilometers from Maebashi, the capital of Gunma Prefecture.

Direct Ryomo limited express trains run from Asakusa station in Tokyo. Services depart every 30 minutes during the mornings and evenings, and every hour during middays. The trip to Ota takes 90 minutes and costs ¥2340. Local Tobu trains, requiring a few transfers, will get you to Ota in about 2 1/4 hours for only ¥1090.

From Narita airport, Ota is most easily accessed using the Maple Bus Liner leaving almost every hour. The total trip lasts roughly 3 hours at a cost of ¥3,200.

Get around
Gunma is known for having the highest ratio of registered vehicles per population among Japan's prefectures and that is especially true of Ota, the home of Subaru Motors. There are few stations and buses tend to only run on main thoroughfares. Renting a vehicle is the most logical option for those staying outside of central Ota. Toyota Rent-a-car has two locations in the vicinity of the station and various sizes of vehicles are available for rent.

See

 * Daikoin Temple (大光院) - Founded in 1618. Popular with nickname Kosodate Donryu (meaning kid-raising Saint Donryu). Located 2.4 km northwest of the downtown.
 * Kanayama Castle (金山城) - A Kamakura-era castle on the top of Mt. Kanayama (244 m). Located 3.2 km north of the downtown.
 * Tenjinyama Kofun (天神山古墳) - A large ancient burial mound (from around the 5th century).
 * Yabuzuka Onsen (やぶ塚温泉)- Ota's hot springs. Originally it was Yabuzukahoncho Town area annexed by Ota. 9.7 km northwest of the downtown.
 * Snake Center (スネークセンター) - Located in Yabuzuka Onsen area. Famous for collection of rare kinds of snakes.

Buy

 * Aeon Mall Ota (イオンモール太田) - This large shopping mall includes a supermarket and a movie theatre as well as many restaurants and boutiques.

Eat
Ota has a special product called Ota-Yakisoba.

Drink
The south side of Ota Station features various drinking establishments, as well as the largest hostess bar district in Northern Kanto. While for all intents and purposes, a great many of the hostess bars are "Japanese Only", some establishments (particularly those staffed by Filipinas) do occasionally welcome non-Japanese. You can expect to spend roughly 4000 to 5000 per hour including drinks at most of the lower priced clubs. That being said, many such establishments may pad the bill and precaution is necessary whenever frequenting these locations.


 * United, Iida-cho 1024 (right down the main drag on the left side of the street). United is a local sports bar mainly catering to Western and Japanese clientele. A great place sit back with a bear and watch the game or shoot a round of pool. The owner and most of the staff speak English and are extremely hospitable.
 * Ebony, (Route 407 behind Sushi-ro). Ota's largest dance club, Ebony has been serving the area's large South American population for over a decade now. The clientele is usually made up of Brazilians and Peruvians, but a large number of hostesses from countries around the world frequent the club after on Saturday nights after 2am. The drink menu is somewhat sparse, but the 70's disco interior and atmosphere alone are worth the visit.

Connect
You would most likely find reliable coverage of the 2G/3G mobile networks in most locations in Ota, but the 4G network might be unreliable. Signal strength might diminish further away from the city center, and you might occasionally experience a network outage for all or some of the mobile phone service providers in the remote areas of the city. Different networks tend to be more stable and reliable in different locations of the city at different times.

MTN, 9Mobile, Airtel (Zain) and GLO are all available service providers. So if you are planning a visit to Ota, like you would do for many other places in the country, you should probably consider having multiple SIM cards, preferably for all the mobile service providers, since you can't tell which will be more stable and reliable at a time in your location during your visit. And if you will risk not having any of them, you might be better off not risking the MTN network, because, from indications, it seem to perform well than the others, though its rates may be high and its offers and services might be stringent, but you are less likely to be concerned of erratic voice and data connection compared to others.

Airtel is another service provider which is fairly satisfactory for all you might need to connect to the world, including rates and network reliability. Of course, Glo (or Globacom) boasts of fast network speed for internet browsing activities, only that you might not be able to enjoy the privilege in some locations. And 9Mobile (formerly Etisalat) usually also performs well in internet browsing speed too but with locational limitations as well, plus data rate is fairly higher.

Go next

 * Isesaki
 * Kiryu
 * Ashikaga
 * Sano
 * Oizumi
 * Oura
 * Tatebayashi
 * Maebashi - the prefectural capital
 * Midori