On the Reggae Bus

8/27/08

After a very long journey from Grenada to NYC, and then NYC to Tokyo, we arrived at Beth and Chris’s house at noon on the 16th of July (I think).  They live at the US Embassy’s residential compound at the intersection of the neighborhoods of Akasaka and Roppongi.  Akasaka is an upscale neighborhood that is home to many hotels, restaurants, and wealthy Japanese people.  Roppongi is also very expensive, and has a large shopping plaza filled with posh places to buy nice things.

I don’t remember all of the details of our first few days in Japan, as I was working on my jet lag.  But I do remember that Beth and Chris were extra nice to us and took us out to an English-style pub to eat huge, delicious cheeseburgers and drink American beer, since we can’t get those types of things in Grenada.  Well, we can get them.  But a Heineken and burger that has been frozen for weeks is not quite a replacement for a Bass and a fresh-made, medium-rare burger.

Know what I mean?

We took one of our first trips outside of Tokyo during the first week that we were there.  We went with Beth, Chris, and their 18-month-old son Max (who will all be hereafter referred to as the Rollisons)  to this onsen in the Gunma Prefecture, a little more than 2 hours door-to-door from Tokyo.

Onsen are sites of natural hot springs, and have been popular in Japan throughout its history.  There are many, many of them across the country and they range from the original style, which would just be a simple outdoor hot spring that someone might have to hike to find, to an upscale resort that might have many luxurious hotel rooms, a full-service spa, and plenty of fancy-pants indoor baths that have harnessed the hot springs to flow inside of the resort.

Onsens are wonderful places, and just the thing to cheer you up after international travel.  So wonderful, in fact, that I think there should be some sort of legislation making mandatory a visit to an onsen, provided by the airline, as soon as you get off the plane, no matter where you are.

The onsen that was chosen for us by the Rollisons was quite simply the most perfect experience that I could imagine.  It was very old, and so the buildings were constructed mostly from pine, and smelled fantastic.  It was located in the mountains, and so it was much cooler than Tokyo was at that time, by about 20 degrees.  It had gorgeous outdoor baths that sat next to a rushing river, a cozy dining room with very good food, and the most comfortable futon beds that I’ve ever slept on.  The property consisted of just the baths, a ryokan (an inn), and a number of rooms where guests could stay.

The Rollisons love the onsen that we went to.  It is affordable, lovely, and special, because only fluent Japanese speakers can visit there; no one who works there speaks very much English (Chris is impressively fluent, and yet very modest about it, of course).  The place also doesn’t have restrictions against tattoos (which 3 out of the four of the adults in our party have at least one of).  Many onsens have a tattoo restriction as an effort to keep yakuza–who are the most prevelant tattoo-wearers in Japan–out.

Aside: Onsens are great places to be at any time of the year, but they are said to most beautiful in winter when the outdoor baths are surrounded with snow, and you are enjoying the toasty hot water.

End Aside.

We took the train for about an hour and a half from Tokyo, and then hopped on the onsen shuttle bus that met us at the station.  On the way to the onsen, we practically ran into a summer festival in progress, which you’ll see photos of, since the bus had to wait a while for it to go by before we could continue our journey.

We got to the onsen, our shoes were taken in the lobby and in exchange we got slippers and a yukata to wear during our stay.  We were shown to our rooms and then the fun began!

Pretty much, all you do at an onsen is sit in the baths for as long as you can stand it; but not before you wash!  The Japanese take their hygiene very seriously.   The bathroom where you wash was superb, with stone walls and heated floors (it’s a large bathroom used by all of the people who stay at the ryokan).  There are individual stations in the bathroom where you can sit on a little wooden stool in front of a hand-held shower head and scrub and rinse to your heart’s content.  There is even a good-sized, sunken hot bath in the bathroom, with water piped in from the hot springs.

I think I got myself cleaner than I ever have been at the onsen.

You are given “modesty towels” to wear in the baths.  Women get a towel to wrap around their body like you would when getting out of the shower, and it comes to your thigh or mid-knee–depending upon how tall you are.  Men get a little towel (more of a large washcloth, really), and use it to cover their naughty bits.

After sitting in the baths, you go to your room and drink cold beer, and then show up to the dining room in your yukata and slippers at mealtimes and eat whatever they give you.  And of course, drink more beer.

Our bedrooms had sliding doors and tatami on the floor, and at night the staff would pull out your futon for you and make your bed.  After a day of hot baths and food and beer, the sleeping was fantastic.

We were there in the middle of the week, so we mostly saw people who looked to be in their 70s staying there.  Being like many other older senior citizens, they didn’t worry so much about other people judging them.  These folks mostly hung out in the baths naked, and put their wet modesty towels on their heads to keep cool.

Max really liked the baths, because he could walk around in them, naked, without the water going over his head.

One the last day, we looked through the ryokan’s strange little market, which i still don’t understand.

We only got to stay a day and a half at the onsen, but it was one of my very favorite things in Japan.

Please see all of our onsen photos here.  Photos of the actual baths are almost at the end of the set, since i had to take them quickly when no one was bathing.

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