Sunday morning found me waking up with one goal in mind: packing an overnight bag in my carry-on luggage for my first ever trip to a Japanese onsen. I was excited and yet nervous at the same time. I didn't really know what to expect, I mean you can read all you want to about Onsens but you've really no idea until you actually GO to one you know?
So the onsen we went to is called
Daini Meisui Tei and you can look at it here: http://www.dai2-meisuitei.com/fl/english/index.html the onsen is located near Date city and is I think about halfway to Hakodate. We had rented a car for about $25 per person, which was $10 cheaper than taking the train would've been. The seven of us: Kazu (Lao's Japanese friend & our driver), Lao, Kosuke, Saori, Jenna, Ren, and myself.
So basically I packed my little red carry-on which is soooo convenient btw. I am so glad that I bought that thing! I brought a change of clothes, PJ's, lotion, and bathing accessories, and also a yukata that I bought in Tokyo because I didn't know if we would get them at the hotel or not. The van we rented was very nice, actually Japanese vans are just very nice in general. Because most Japanese people mail their luggage to their travel destinations the amount of space devoted to cargo area is very small. So you can imagine, my little carry-on and about 6 other people's backpacks all crammed in together with the drinks and snacks we stopped and bought to take with us (costs a lot more if you buy stuff @ onsen). However all the PEOPLE riding in the car had plenty of space to move around in. More space than I think I've ever had in a mini-van before. Soooo nice.
The drive was nice but the scenery isn't as cool going down south in Hokkaido as it is going up north like when I went to Asahikawa. The coolest part about the whole thing is that we got to see Niseko which is a dormant
VOLCANO . We actually ended up driving about 2/3 of the way around it before continuing southward
and we got to stop at a scenic outlook and take pictures of it which was really awesome. :)
The onsen itself is a combination Onsen/Resort Hotel and because it was Golden week it was full of lots of Japanese families. There are actually 3 hotels, each with their own onsen and they are located along a mile long strip from each other. There is a river that is shallow (at that time of year) but very wide that runs between the hotel complexes and the main road. We believe that the hotels were built during the 'bubble' economy here in Japan during the 1980's because as you walk around the hotel you can see a lot of random oppulance. Like the cherry blossom etching on all the elevator glass, the sailboat in the swimming pool, the hotel room set-up, etc. The hotels are also set off into the mountains so it is peaceful and quiet (except for the guests of course!).
All the rooms in the hotel were set up in a combination of Japanese ryokan and modern hotel style. Which is to say that there were basically 2 rooms rolled into one. When you walk into the room, there is carpet, there are two western style beds, a couple of arm chairs, a mini-fridge (nothing in it), a closet, and a western style bathroom with shower. At the end of this room there is a raised platform (basically the second room) that is set up in Japanese style with tatami mat flooring, a low japanese style table, zobuton (sp?) cushions, a tea set with traditional green tea and sweets, hot water heater (for tea), and a Japanese closet that contains 3 futons to sleep on. They also had traditional shoji screens over the windows which was pretty cool.
The guys wanted to test out the swimming pool (both indoor & ourdoor available) so they stripped off, put on their onsen-approved outfits and headed out. However the girls, and Ren decided to wander around the hotel and see what all they had to offer before deciding to go swimming. The hotel itself was quite large with 12 floors, a large lobby, a banquet hall for breakfast & dinner, a seperate 'cafe' that served things like ramen, gyoza, ice cream, coffee, etc. and seating for that. There was also a games room (for the kids) in the basement, a large random area full of 'souveniers' from the onsen and also this area of Japan, as well as the normal vending machines for drinks, food, ice cream, cigarettes, and alcohol. There is also a wedding chapel that was situated a little to the left of the hotel (not attached) and in the lobby was a small bridal boutique where you could buy your fancy wedding duds.
Outside the hotel there was a small man-made waterfall, little tables set up to sip tea, and in a field a little over you could see where they had large cafe umbrellas built into the ground & in summer would set up tables so people could enjoy the fresh air. There were also hiking trails through the woods but it was cold & getting dark so we did not explore them. We wandered back to the room to find a large white paper bag sitting outside it on the floor. The bag contained 2 extra sets of everything. The rooms are all set up to accomodate 5 people, but we had 7 so it was a little inconvenient. Thus they had sent us 2 extra sets of clothing, slippers, towels, tea cups, extra sweets & tea, etc.
Shortly thereafter the guys came back and we decided to all head down to dinner which was tabehodai <-- this means it was a buffet. It was very strange to be sitting in this large banquet hall with lovely wood tables and carved chairs and yet the Japanese buffet style is very chaotic. They basically have it set up like fair stalls, each type of food has a little table, and those tables are randomly scattered throughout half the room, and you wander through them trying to find food you want to eat. But they had delicous steak, sushi, deep fried crab legs, italian food, american style french fries, etc. And then they had about 3 tables full of western & japanese sweets for desert. Needless to say we were stuffed!
Afterwards we went back up to the room to discover another visit by hotel staff. They had not only laid out the 3 futons onto the tatami mat but they had also brought in 2 extra futons for us. :) A pillow fight and some mild silliness insued before we all decided to head down to the onsen to try out the baths.
Now a word about the onsen clothes they've given us. Usually when you go to a Ryokan or an onsen you get a yukata which is basically a summer weight kimono that is much simplier to wear than a traditional kimono and acts more like a western style robe. Now our onsen supplied us with something a little different... basically we got a 5 year old's bright yellow, Japanese style pajamas. They were drawstring, mid-calf length pants with ties at the bottom for rolling them up and securing them I guess. The shirt was elbow length (or 3/4 length on me) and had folded over like a kimono with two ties on the inside and outside to secure it to your body. They also supplied us with soft, dark blue sleeveless overcoats that tied loosely at the waist. I think that the color scheme of bright yellow with orange and green polka dots was so that you wouldn't want to steal them and take them home with you because they were so hideous. However I
did see in the giftshop where you could buy your very own, brand new pair for about $30.
Japanese people
love going to onsen. It's like visiting the beach for westerners I guess. However we all remain clothed and at the onsen you gotta be naked. So of course I was nervous about this part, I mean... who wants to see and be seen naked by a bunch of strangers
and your girl friends? So the onsen is seperated into two parts, the female and the male. They usually have these ceiling to chest height curtains covering the doorways that have the kanji for male and female to help you distinguish between them. But they are also colored coded, the girl's was red, and the guy's was blue.
When you come in there is a genkan (entryway) where you remove your shoes/slippers and step up into the onsen. Then you make your way over to the rows of lockers & shelves with baskets. The lockers are coin operated (but you get the coin back) where you can put your valuables, like purses, room keys, etc. The baskets are if you were smart and just showed up in your clothes. You select a basket and take
everything off, then put it in the basket. You're going to want to bring any special toiletries you have with you but they will supply you with soap, shampoo, and conditioner so you don't
have to bring anything in if you don't want to. You
must leave your bath towel in the basket, however there is a smaller (handtowel) modesty towel you can bring in with you to cover your naked bits, however most japanese are so desensitized to nakedness they don't use it.
You enter the large bathing room and you'll see a row of plastic stools & basins, in front of shower heads, and also the main bathing pools. You
must thoroughly shower yourself before entering the pools. So go to an empty stool, rinse it off with the shower head, and sit down. Fill up the basin with water and proceed to soap yourself up from head to toe and everywhere in between. Use the shampoo also! Then make sure that you're thoroughly rinsed off before getting up. Rinse off the stool and set everything back up the way you found it. Now you can enter the bath!
Our onsen had several different pools to choose from, one had sulfer and bubbles, another was just hot, one was a 'walking' onsen which you slowly walked through and then got back out and did it again (cooler water), one was a 'massage' bath with fake waterfalls with high pressure so you would stand under one of the hoses and let it pound out the aches in your shoulders & back. And then there was the outdoor onsen. It was freezing but there it was. The only problem is that you're in a large room full of hot water and steam with NO VENTILATION, so the air was very humid and thick.
The one thing you need to remember when getting into the baths is this:
Do not put your modesty towel in the water . They consider it to be dirty after you used it in the shower and so you can't dunk it in the water. However you can bring it with you into the bath, most Japanese use it to wrap around their head or put it on top of the head like an ice pack because the water in the (now wet) towel is much cooler than the water you're sitting in so it acts as a soothing refresher.
We tried out the various pools, trying hard (at least on my part) not to look at anybody's private parts. This is sooo much easier for guys! All they have to avoid is belly button down, but girls? Talk about neck down; totally sucks. It was actually pretty funny though because Saori (who is Japanese) has a tattoo about as large as my hand down her left side under her breast (I think Jenna said it was the kanji for 'sekai' or "world"). Tattoos as you may or may not know, are a stereotypical sign of yakuza (japanese mafia) in Japan. So a lot of onsen prohibit people who have tattoos from coming into them thinking they can get rid of the criminal element this way. However nowadays tattoos among younger people are growing in popularity and so it is more difficult to enforce. But Saori didn't want to take any chances so she basically had her modesty towel nailed to the side of her body as we were walking between pools, and her arms crossed over it when we were sitting in the water.
The outdoor onsen was our last stop of the evening. It's early may so it is still very cold in Hokkaido only getting up into the 50's during the day and dropping back to the 30's at night. The outdoor water temperature was 43 C which is about 109 F, so the water temperature was very nice but the air temperature was cold! But on our overheated bodies the cold air felt wonderful! The outdoor onsen is on top of a portion of the hotel's roof, has an overhang so you don't get rained on, and high sides so no one hiking in the forest can see you bathing. It had also been designed to be like a real outdoor onsen (obviously it's man-made) and they had made fake (cement) rocks to line the edges, fake ferns to line around the walls, etc. However seeing as how Jenna & I are westerners, and haven't been raised to sit in onsen for hours like most Japanese people are we were reaching our limit by the time we made it to the outside onsen. I was feeling very dehydrated and sort of faint, and Jenna was feeling a bit faint as well. A good rule of thumb if you are not used to onsen do
not stay in them for more than 30-60 minutes. Japanese ladies can stay there for hours, but your body isn't used to it so if you don't want to faint I suggest getting out for a while! We were in for about 45 min.
After you've been in the onsen baths you must take another shower (just to rinse) before you can get dressed again. So we headed back over to the stools, rinsed ourselves off thoroughly (in freezing water on my part) and then headed back to the baskets to pick up towels and clothes. The onsen also (usually) provides an area for you to get yourself back up to standard before heading back out into the stressful world. So after toweling off & changing back into clothes we headed over to the vanity area. Here there were stools, mirrors, hairdryers, lotions & creams, and god bless them, a drinking fountain. So while Saori was blow drying her hair I collapsed into one of the waiting area's chairs to recuperate from my faintness (I also think maybe the sushi didn't agree with me). But I didn't feel much better afterwards.
When we arrived back at the room (me feeling horrible!) the guys were already there having arrived perhaps 10 minutes before us. So while I, who felt terrible, passed out on one of the western style beds the rest of the group sat around playing card games and drinking until about 2 in the morning on the futons. Then about 2 am they all decided (drunkenly) to go down to the lobby & get ice cream out of the vending machine. At this point I was feeling better so I asked Jenna (who had my $ from earlier) to bring me back an apple juice. So there I was left in a silent room with a seriously drunk Ren who told me that he wanted ice cream but 'his legs weren't working to let him get up'. I then asked him why he hadn't asked them to bring him one back and he made me laugh by saying 'I thought I did... but I guess it was only in my mind'. After about 10 minutes he managed to get up and wander out after them which I thought was hilarious. Everybody came back about 20 minutes later, except Ren & Jenna; who had apparently been with them but gotten seperated on the way upstairs. But at this point my stomach hurt (heartburn)so I wandered back downstairs (with money from my wallet) to see if the vending maching carried milk. Which it did thankfully. I guzzled the milk and wandered back upstairs where Jenna & Ren had returned with my juice and a ton of change.
Breakfast at the onsen was served between 7:30-9:30 am and was also buffet style. Unfortunately because everybody stayed up (not me obviously) until 3:00 am drinking they kept turning off their alarms and we all managed to miss breakfast by not waking up until almost 10:00. The guys decided to head back down for one more (fortifying) dip in the onsen before we headed out and I wandered down to the gift store area to buy instant ramen noodles for breakfast. Then about 11:00ish we had to check out and all wandered downstairs. The only problem with this hotel was that there were about 12 floors and only 4 elevators... and it was golden week. So we who are on the 5th floor are kind of screwed. All the elevators going down were FULL of people the entire time we were there & we always had to split up into 2/3 groups to get downstairs or back upstairs. The elevators going up were hardly any better.
So the americans got seperated from everybody else, and thinking that they had already headed back to the car we went out there to meet them. Unfortunately they were all in the gift shop instead so we ended up standing around for about 30 min. before they came out (thanks sooo much Jenna). On the plus side it allowed me the time to run over and take a couple pictures of the river running past the hotel. The way back was much more interesting (and somehow seemed quicker) than the way to the onsen. Ren & I spent the entire time talking about Star Trek and Babylon 5 ( I know I know I let my inner geek escape for a bit) while Jenna, Kosuke, Saori, and Lao were passed out asleep.
The trip definately seemed to take more than 24 hours and (I think at least) that it was a lot of fun and a great experience.... except the feeling sick part. All told with the hotel, food, onsen, and car the trip was $120 which is very expensive if you consider I could have gone to an onsen in Otaru for $6 but pretty cheap if you think how much Japanese people usually spend on these types of excursions. So if you get the chance to, I would totally attempt an onsen trip (even if it's local) while you are in Japan. Also here are some pictures of us at the hotel for your viewing pleasure!
** Also I have started a new blog for my cooking adventures because this one was getting to cluttered by them. Check it out at: www.cookinggiraffe.blogspot.com
