Nudietown

We are now in Osaka, having just come from a place called Kinosaki Onsen.

For those of you unfamiliar, an onsen is a hot spring. They usually take the form of communal baths, and the traditional way of doing them is in the birthday suit. This is how the Japanese do them – I don’t know how a bathing suit might be regarded, I would probably get glares.

Any person who follows my blog might suspect I have a few body image type issues, and sure enough, nuding up in front of those people not my hubby brings about a little anxiety.

But, I thought, hey, I have 2 choices. I can sit in my room and run a hot bath in private, or get into the spirit of it. I manned (and nuded) up and chose the latter.

And I have to say, it was quite liberating. It is all  quite normal for the Japanese.

There was a bath at the place we were staying and also several public baths in town. A lot of them, I was alone, so I got to do a starfish in the pool.

The routine is that you sit on a stool and wash yourself with soap, rinse off and then jump in (well walk in). The water is naturally mineral rich and quite hot, I could only tolerate it for about 10 minutes or so. Some of the places have outdoor rotemburo (baths). They were quite good because it was cool outside. All of the baths are segregated; male and female.

It cures what ails you. In my case, it was some muscle aches and pains, and also I took a great big dose of “get over myself”. It was a liberating experience and, strange as this may sound, I feel better about myself for it.

The place we stayed, Nishimuraya Honkan, was a very traditional, very upmarket Onsen Ryokan (traditional style hotel with onsen on site). It was aaaaaaaaaahmazing. We had our own little servant, Kayoko-san, who came and bought us our Japanese haute cuisine dinner. It was amazing food, visually and taste wise (though there are a few Japanese flavours I am not especially fond of). There was also a cooked breakfast which Kayoko served us.

The onsen on site were very luxurious, with fluffy white towels, nice skin cleansers and lotions to use, hair dryers and even a massage chair that we could use, theoretically, as long as we wanted. I never saw a Japanese person in there.

Kinosaki Onsen itself is a beautiful little village, nestled among the mountains but near the beach, where bath houses, cute shops and shrines intermingle.

We have had lots of holidays, but Ian and I found it up there with the best things we have done.

Tonight, a pitstop in Osaka. We have just come back from town, we went up to the top of a tall building and had a drink and took in the view.

My alcohol tolerance appears to have deserted me; I had 3 wines tonight and feel sick.This does not bode well for London, where my friend will try and ply me with the stuff.

Off to Koyasan (Mount Koya) tomorrow, this is an important Zen Buddhism place in Japan, we are staying in a buddhist inn and being fed vegetables.

Then to Nara, then Kyoto, then back to Tokyo to do Karaoke with Kathryn.

Kobe and the missing ring.

Yesterday was a “plop” day, where we plopped ourselves down and did nothing much. And, perhaps in sympathy with Melb, it pissed down with rain all day.

For those who follow me on facebook, there was a little incident with my engagement ring – it went missing and we could not find it. Not on the floor (we thought it dropped off the desk in our room), not in the bin. Not in our suitcase. It was about the time the cleaners were coming through.

We consternated about it all day, even got the cleaner to open up the Vacuum cleaner bag, but it was not there. Finally at lunch I wondered whether it fell into one of the bags that we threw out that carried our breakfast, and asked to look at the garbage.  In Australia, this would bring about distasteful looks, but the cleaners bought up the bags and looked through them. Ian and I had a quick look but could not find it and thanked the cleaner. About 5 minutes later we had a knock on the door, it was the cleaner with my ring.

We did a lot of bowing. We even offered him a small amount of cash (1000 yen, about 12 dollars) but he emphatically refused. We have bought him a nice bottle of sake which we will leave when we check out.

Japanese people, what they lack in English, they make up for in being very nice and helpful. Not that I expect them to speak English at all, but in my travels they are some of the nicest folks I have come across. Case in point, we asked a lady where we could catch a particular train. She told us, then as we were going there, she ran up behind us and let us know she had told us the wrong thing. She went right out of her way for us.

Anywho. We went to Himeji Castle today, really noice but undergoing some renovations. We then went to the gardens attached, amazing. We partook of a mini-Japanese tea ceremony, with tea so green that it must be good for us.

Kobe is wedged between the mountains and the sea, with probably about a km or less between. Hence there is opportunity for partaking of great views. We went to the crowne plaza hotel, to the top floor, to have dinner and a drink. It was expensive, but not as expensive as an Australian hotel restaurant, we were psychologically prepared for the cost. I had Kobe beef spaghetti bolognese. It was yarmy. The view from the 36th floor of the hotel was quite something, too.

I really like Italian food in Japan (or Japtalian as I have coined it). It is quite garlicky. And kobe beef lends a certain something (grease). It was tasteee.

We have made some changes to our travel plans so that I now get a week in the UK without extending the total length of the trip. Will visit Scotland, have not been to Edinburgh before, and have a friend in Glasgow who I hope to see.

Tomorrow, off to Kinosaki onsen for some serious soaking.