Slippers, Where have you Gone

{ May 30, 2010 @ 5:47 am } · { #5 ~ Japan }

We woke up at 7:45 so we could go to breakfast, it was buffet style and they had pretty normal breakfast food like rice, fruit and fish, but they also had lettuce and mini tomatoes … AND dressing. Yummy, salad for breakfast is awesome, you should try it.
After breakfast we showered in our shower/bath room and it was really interesting. Mostly cause blue kept coming out of my hair because the lady did a REALLY bad job … so now the streaks on the top of my head are like white -_- I want my money back!
During the shower, I kept trying to not get blue all over the walls/doors/floor … and if I did, I had to spray it off so it wouldn’t stain x.x
After that, we pretty much lounged around all day … oh, except for when the maid lady came by. Haha, they wanted to clean our room … but we couldn’t understand what they were saying so I told Jon to say wakarimasen which means “I don’t understand”, since he was the one that answered the door. They left and in a few minutes, we had a phone call from the English speaking guy that told us we have to leave for a bit while they come in to clean our room … like, they had to. We thought it was funny, but were okay with it, we just requested that our futons stay out all day. We just went downstairs to look at some snacks and ended up getting some Ramune, came back and lounged out some more.
That night, dinner was MUCH better, there was a lot of things we were able to eat (and did) including a soup that was given to us the night before. We think it is specific to the Tazawako (perhaps Akita?) area and had leek, dough dumplings, a piece of chicken (about 1x1x1 inch) in a really good broth … I’m guessing chickenish broth. This soup was prepared much the same way as that veggie egg thing I had the previous night; it was in a little metal pot with a wooden lid and all of it was sitting on a stand that had space underneath to put that little disk in … so that when the disk is lit, it burns and cooks whatever is above.
-dinner pics-
Including that, we had cooked crab meat, pickled veggies, raw octopus and trout, udon noodle soup AND an unidentified sea creature. Seriously … we have no idea what it is, maybe you guys can tell us?
-insert pics and video-
As you can see, we had a small room to ourselves, which was nice because we were able to spread our legs out and sit … not properly because our legs/feet kept falling asleep XD
After dinner, we went to the hot spring public baths that the hotel had. If you have not been to a hot spring public bath, you should do so … once you get past the awkwardness, it’s a real treat ^_^
What is it, you ask? WELL …
I didn’t take pictures because there were naked ladies all over, BUT I can describe it for you ^_^ In our Ryokan, there were 4 hot spring baths. 2 were for men, 2 were for women, each had one inside and had one outside. Jon pretty much didn’t describe the men’s bath for me, so you will get my experience.
When you first go into the area, which is at the top of some wide stairs, you need to take off your shoes/slippers. I did this and found that to my right after I took a few steps on the raised wooden platform (where shoes are NOT allowed) there was an area big enough for a few (3 or 4) women to primp themselves after the bath. Going straight past that area and through the curtains (the short ones that you usually find in front of Japanese resturaunts … like this …)
-pic-
I came into a room with baskets (no handles) on shelves and some benches with tatami tops. To my right was a big glass window that allowed anyone in the room to see into the bath area. Yes, the baskets were to put your clothes and towels … so I stripped down and realized that I didn’t bring down the little washcloth. I mean, it wasn’t big enough to cover ALL of me, but there were some areas it could have covered. So, with a sigh, I walked towards the glass door and marched my white and naked (literally) butt into the bath area.
The area is rather nice, stone floors and big “bath” areas to soak. These more look like a kiddie wading pool because they’re shallow, but deep enough to sit and still have your head above water while your neck and down was covered with hot spring water. BUT, before getting into the ‘bath’ you need to wash/rinse yourself. Since I had already taken a shower that day, I just sat down on a stool that lined the walls, faced mirror, and rinsed off my body before climbing into the bath.
The water was hot. It felt very nice though, the smell wasn’t that fantastic because the water is from a real natural hot spring … which is basically sulfur water. It turned my toe ring black But don’t worry, it’s going back to silver now ^_^ After soaking inside the steamy and foggy (yes, my glasses kept fogging up!) bath room, I went outside to check out that hotspring. Outside was chilly but worth it. The “bath” was in more of a natural stone, it wasn’t smoothed out like the inside (but still comfy enough to touch/sit on) and then there were little individual “baths” for women to go into. It was really relaxing and there was a little waterfall that the water came out of, the rocks that it splashed on had turned white from the sulfur.
Afterwards, I trotted my American self through the little naked Japanese women, dried off and got dressed back into my Yukata. I think the thing that bothered me the most out of that whole thing was that I think I accidentally put on someone else’s hotel slippers

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