Onsen Madness!
Trip Start
Jan 23, 2007
1
4
14
Trip End
??? ??, 2007
Arima Onsen, Japan
Thursday, March 1, 2007
Arima Onsen is a little town tucked high in the mountains near Kobe. It is a famous spa town and is one of the oldest in Japan.
As soon as I stepped off the train and walked up the road, I began to get a sense of the old Japan. Narrow, windy streets, lovely bridges over lovely waterways and trees - thank the stars! So many beautiful trees!
After prancing around town for a while, looking at temples and such, I decided to take the plunge and do what I had really come for...I was going to take a bath.
I used to go to the Japanese Bath House in Melbourne with my pal Jane (miss you, doll face), I was familiar with the process of going to an onsen. Here's the deal:
1. Enter the building. Take off shoes.
2. Enter the women's area (or men's if you're a man).
3. Take off all your clothes (yes - all of them) and store them in a locker.
4. Enter the wet area and shower yourself whilst sitting on a stool.
5. Enter the bath. Try not to stare at other women's tits.
6. Sit around in the bath until the 42 degree water gets to you, or until you are as wrinkled as an old lady's bottom.
7. Get out and take another shower. Wash your hair.
8. Put your clothes back on and make yourself look pretty.
9. Retrieve your shoes.
10. Step back into the filthy world and enjoy feeling exhilaratingly clean for half an hour.
So I already knew how to take a Japanese bath. However, I wasn't sure if I had the courage to take one in a busy onsen full of only Japanese women. I'd had a hard enough time when I first arrived in Japan at just being stared at on the train. What sort of looks would I get when I bared all of my whiter than white skin, hairy legs and private parts?
Surprisingly, all was fine. None of the thirty or so women who I was sharing the bath with seemed to give two hoots about me being there. It felt divine and oh so therapeutic. The water was kin-sen water; reddish in colour and full of iron and salt. It was in fact, saltier than sea water.
I even made a friend whilst I was having a soak. A gorgeous old lady who came up and asked if I was American. I never in my wildest dreams thought that I would ever have a conversation with a toothless Japanese woman, whilst we were both standing stark naked in poo coloured water.
After my uplifting experience at the onsen, I took a walk through the bamboo scattered forest, did some mandatory souvenir shopping, then headed home to the concrete of suburbia, with memories of Arima set in my mind and absorbed by my pores.
Comments
Onsens so hot they're cool
Great memories of my own forays into little villages in Shikoku and Kyushu in search of the perfect scald. Love your pix. Love knowing you're having a good time.
Sayonara Sally