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Passing through sliding glass doors flanked by flaming torches, we entered the famous onsen hotel. I kind of expected a Japanese flute to sound somewhere off in the distance.
The hotel was so big that I had to ask for directions to get to the onsen. Using Japanese here wasn’t really a problem though, seeing as I’d forced myself not to be nervous about anything today. I was about to get naked in front of a bunch of people, after all, what language problem did I have to fear?
We paid our fees and walked a million miles into the depths of the hotel, walking past massage stations and riding an elevator with only two buttons, “Lobby” and “Onsen.” Best elevator ever! We’d been wearing indoor slippers that we acquired at the entrance, so when took them off to enter the dressing room it was kind of hilarious. I’d taken the bigger size slippers from the lobby, which meant that since it was a Japanese women’s locker room, there was my one pair of gigantic baby blue men’s slippers in a sea of tiny navy women’s ones.
I’d been pushing back thoughts of awkwardness all day, but I realized I didn’t really have to suppress them at all because once the whole business started, it wasn’t very scary. It’s all very natural as you pick a basket, strip down, and head out to the showers.
The whole place was pretty luxuriant, like a spa, really, and at the entrance to the baths, there a line of little vanities where you sit on your Japanese shower bucket and scrub down. An important aspect of the Japanese hot spring bath is that you don’t use it to bathe, you use it to soak, so putting soap or hair into the bath is a big no-no, and seeing as it’s communal, you have to scrub very well before you enter. Since it was such a nice hotel, they had quality shampoos and cleansing oils there for you to use, and there are also little mirrors - maybe in case you forgot what you looked like without any clothes. Seriously though, the mirror is the only reminder that you are in the buff.
Then you get up and walk around, looking for baths and carrying clothesless conversations as naturally as if you were dressed in a three piece suit. Some women carry “modesty towels,” small towels they’ll carry in front of their bodies which they then use to exfoliate or wrap around their hair. The modesty towel is really more like a distraction than an actual cover though, it’s kind of the equivalent of carrying a drink at a party.
It would have been more refreshing to be at the hot spring if the day had been cooler, but after all our walking and the temperate weather, we got pretty toasty pretty fast. I’m not sure about this onsen, but the area is famous for its natural springs so I think perhaps the natural water is tapped in somehow. In areas where they are not renowned for good water, usually it’s tap water with additives. I’m not sure, but I’m hoping this comes straight from the ground. The first bath we tried had an open window view into hell valley, which was pretty neat. In the States this would never happen – “someone might see you!!” But here it was just fine. There were tall trees planted and it wasn’t such an angle that it put you in line with the tourists’ view or anything, but still the laxness is mildly entertaining. In fact, I think the men’s baths *do* look out over the tourist part of the valley.
I wanted to try a thick green-colored bath, but the water was just too hot and I couldn’t bring myself to get in it. We toured some of the outdoor baths but they were pretty hot and pretty crowded so we didn’t stay long.
I’ve heard foreign people worry about getting stared at for looking different in the onsen, but even though we were the only white people in town that day, few people actually stared, even after we traded our clothes for onsen bliss. It was, however, a little weird getting into the larger outdoor bath because for whatever reason, though they ignored us before, everyone stopped to stare at us. It wasn’t really like we were being sized up though, it was the typical foreigner stare that I get on the street when I’m riding my bicycle. The more face-oriented stare that says, “Oh! You’re not from around here! If I was bold we would have a conversation right now!” We had some good quality talk time at that point, Kei and I soaking in minerals among the baby trees, though occasionally my mind wandered to how big of a catastrophe it would be to suddenly be discovered by mosquitoes.
By then it was too hot and I even copied the other women and sat mostly out of the water. If you’d have asked me this time last year if I thought I’d be stark naked up to my knees in sulfuric water in a forest with a bunch of Japanese woman, I would have said “uh…probably not.”
When we’d had enough soaking, we headed to the last two baths, the gimmick ones. The first was a nice tepid water over a pool shaped like an easy chair and the other was a stool with a stream of water that massages your back and shoulders. I figured that was a good way to end things and headed out.
In my haste to get ready in time for dinner, I forgot to use the complimentary scale and drink the complimentary tea, but I did enjoy the huge gorgeous vanities complete with toiletries, hair driers, and ambient task lighting to reapply my make-up. I could primp in that room ANY DAY. When we left, I was literally glowing with heat, health, and happiness. All night I smelled vaguely of minerals and when Kei’s student/friend Asami picked us up in her car we fogged up the windows.
It was very late at that point, but Asami took us out for Mongolian Barbecue, which is essentially a little grill in the center of your table where you grill meat and vegetables yourself. This was much calmer than the Genghis Khan party with the ALTs, seeing as we trusted each other not to steal each other’s meat and there was plenty of meat to begin with! We drank lime and grape chuuhai mixers and ate real beef (probably the first time I’ve done that since I’ve been here!) and seasoned chicken and pork. This is a dream come true after eating nothing but pork in this city. Where the pork comes from, I’ll never know, considering I haven’t seen any animals anywhere near here. Though I guess we’re not eating the cows I see in Wisconsin either. Still, it’s eerie when there’s so little agriculture. But that’s probably less of a “Japan” thing and more of a “I’ve always been in agricultural cities” type thing.
Anyway, yummy vegetables, yummy meat, and good company. Asami was very cute and her English was good enough that we were easily able to teach each other things. She was impressed by my kanji, and in fact I even impressed myself because I’ve learned very many of them lately and hadn’t really had a chance to use them yet. Turns out many of them appear in restaurant talk :)
This is definitely not the last time I’m going to the onsen district, nor the last time I’m seeing these friends.
The hotel was so big that I had to ask for directions to get to the onsen. Using Japanese here wasn’t really a problem though, seeing as I’d forced myself not to be nervous about anything today. I was about to get naked in front of a bunch of people, after all, what language problem did I have to fear?
We paid our fees and walked a million miles into the depths of the hotel, walking past massage stations and riding an elevator with only two buttons, “Lobby” and “Onsen.” Best elevator ever! We’d been wearing indoor slippers that we acquired at the entrance, so when took them off to enter the dressing room it was kind of hilarious. I’d taken the bigger size slippers from the lobby, which meant that since it was a Japanese women’s locker room, there was my one pair of gigantic baby blue men’s slippers in a sea of tiny navy women’s ones.
I’d been pushing back thoughts of awkwardness all day, but I realized I didn’t really have to suppress them at all because once the whole business started, it wasn’t very scary. It’s all very natural as you pick a basket, strip down, and head out to the showers.
The whole place was pretty luxuriant, like a spa, really, and at the entrance to the baths, there a line of little vanities where you sit on your Japanese shower bucket and scrub down. An important aspect of the Japanese hot spring bath is that you don’t use it to bathe, you use it to soak, so putting soap or hair into the bath is a big no-no, and seeing as it’s communal, you have to scrub very well before you enter. Since it was such a nice hotel, they had quality shampoos and cleansing oils there for you to use, and there are also little mirrors - maybe in case you forgot what you looked like without any clothes. Seriously though, the mirror is the only reminder that you are in the buff.
Then you get up and walk around, looking for baths and carrying clothesless conversations as naturally as if you were dressed in a three piece suit. Some women carry “modesty towels,” small towels they’ll carry in front of their bodies which they then use to exfoliate or wrap around their hair. The modesty towel is really more like a distraction than an actual cover though, it’s kind of the equivalent of carrying a drink at a party.
It would have been more refreshing to be at the hot spring if the day had been cooler, but after all our walking and the temperate weather, we got pretty toasty pretty fast. I’m not sure about this onsen, but the area is famous for its natural springs so I think perhaps the natural water is tapped in somehow. In areas where they are not renowned for good water, usually it’s tap water with additives. I’m not sure, but I’m hoping this comes straight from the ground. The first bath we tried had an open window view into hell valley, which was pretty neat. In the States this would never happen – “someone might see you!!” But here it was just fine. There were tall trees planted and it wasn’t such an angle that it put you in line with the tourists’ view or anything, but still the laxness is mildly entertaining. In fact, I think the men’s baths *do* look out over the tourist part of the valley.
I wanted to try a thick green-colored bath, but the water was just too hot and I couldn’t bring myself to get in it. We toured some of the outdoor baths but they were pretty hot and pretty crowded so we didn’t stay long.
I’ve heard foreign people worry about getting stared at for looking different in the onsen, but even though we were the only white people in town that day, few people actually stared, even after we traded our clothes for onsen bliss. It was, however, a little weird getting into the larger outdoor bath because for whatever reason, though they ignored us before, everyone stopped to stare at us. It wasn’t really like we were being sized up though, it was the typical foreigner stare that I get on the street when I’m riding my bicycle. The more face-oriented stare that says, “Oh! You’re not from around here! If I was bold we would have a conversation right now!” We had some good quality talk time at that point, Kei and I soaking in minerals among the baby trees, though occasionally my mind wandered to how big of a catastrophe it would be to suddenly be discovered by mosquitoes.
By then it was too hot and I even copied the other women and sat mostly out of the water. If you’d have asked me this time last year if I thought I’d be stark naked up to my knees in sulfuric water in a forest with a bunch of Japanese woman, I would have said “uh…probably not.”
When we’d had enough soaking, we headed to the last two baths, the gimmick ones. The first was a nice tepid water over a pool shaped like an easy chair and the other was a stool with a stream of water that massages your back and shoulders. I figured that was a good way to end things and headed out.
In my haste to get ready in time for dinner, I forgot to use the complimentary scale and drink the complimentary tea, but I did enjoy the huge gorgeous vanities complete with toiletries, hair driers, and ambient task lighting to reapply my make-up. I could primp in that room ANY DAY. When we left, I was literally glowing with heat, health, and happiness. All night I smelled vaguely of minerals and when Kei’s student/friend Asami picked us up in her car we fogged up the windows.
It was very late at that point, but Asami took us out for Mongolian Barbecue, which is essentially a little grill in the center of your table where you grill meat and vegetables yourself. This was much calmer than the Genghis Khan party with the ALTs, seeing as we trusted each other not to steal each other’s meat and there was plenty of meat to begin with! We drank lime and grape chuuhai mixers and ate real beef (probably the first time I’ve done that since I’ve been here!) and seasoned chicken and pork. This is a dream come true after eating nothing but pork in this city. Where the pork comes from, I’ll never know, considering I haven’t seen any animals anywhere near here. Though I guess we’re not eating the cows I see in Wisconsin either. Still, it’s eerie when there’s so little agriculture. But that’s probably less of a “Japan” thing and more of a “I’ve always been in agricultural cities” type thing.
Anyway, yummy vegetables, yummy meat, and good company. Asami was very cute and her English was good enough that we were easily able to teach each other things. She was impressed by my kanji, and in fact I even impressed myself because I’ve learned very many of them lately and hadn’t really had a chance to use them yet. Turns out many of them appear in restaurant talk :)
This is definitely not the last time I’m going to the onsen district, nor the last time I’m seeing these friends.