Onsen

To you and me, that means hot spa. Oh delight!

One of my bestest friends from school is here visiting and I decided that her first weekend needed to be at a hot spa. One, I was looking for the dose of courage that she would provide to go nude into the spas. Two, I was looking for a night by myself with her so we could talk girly things in peace without having to worry about Roo. I got both and it was delightful.

First, there was the trip there. Unzen is a beautiful little town buried in the mountains around Mount Unzen-Fugen (the volcano nearby). Well, turns out that, in the middle of December, there's snow in them thar hills. Yeah...snow. Lots and lots of snow. Turns out, too, that it's bad to ignore the signs suggesting snow chains even if the first one seemed a bit immature. We did two tries up the hill, failed both times, and found another route that had little to no snow. It took us about 3 hours to get there, but we did it.

There was lots of snow in Unzen that night. It was beautiful to see the snow and the steam from the "hells" in the night lights.

Having skipped lunch, we opted for an early dinner (5p). They were a bit surprised, but able to work us in. Dinner was amazing. Skillets for cooking mushroom and beef. A small pot with tofu, veggies and other delectables cooking as the soup boiled. Plates and plates of sushi. Tempura. We ate far too much, but not a bit was bad.

Then, we changed into our yukata robes and were off to the public baths. We sort of banked on the fact that everyone else would be at dinner and it turns out we were right. We had the bath to ourselves. We showered (like good public bath goers) and then hopped in. It got warmer as the water circulated and we ended up getting too warm and leaving after only a few minutes. We showered again (per custom) and went to our room. Dessert was waiting for us - almost creme brulee and so tasty. Then, we crashed. Yeah, it was early - we were exhausted from the angst of the drive.

The next morning, we woke early and had some of the cake they had left in our fridge. Then, we had our breakfast in the 1st floor restaurant. It started with a fish (still bony...not my thing) that we threw on a grill and ended with the egg and bean sprout mixture that had gone on when the fish was done. In between there was miso (yum), rice, and salad with goma dressing (double yum). It was traditionally Japanese and made me very happy that I usually opted for the Western menu.

After that, was our private bath time. We found what we thought was our bath, only to be stopped by someone asking if we were ok. I showed him our room key and he escorted us to a HUGE outdoor spa. It was lava rocks and open air and COLD (well, the trip to the shower and from shower to bath was), but so beautiful. It was so amazing to be all toasty warm in the bath and have the cool outdoor air on our faces. The snow was just that extra touch of WOW! that made it all so worthwhile. We had just enough time to get back to our room, dress and check out.

On the drive back, we stopped at a noodle house and had amazing udon. It was a great taste of Japan for both of us.