Sunday October 26-Monday October 27, 2008--The Ryokan

Sunday night we checked in a ryokan. It's the Japanese version of a spa and resort. You wear special robes around the place, sleep on the floor, and bathe in the onsens. (more about that in a bit) Here is a view out of one of the windows on my floor. It had turned cold and the mountain air was fresh and cold. It was lovely!!


We had a 14 course banquet in the room above. The waiter just kept serving and bringing and serving and bringing!!

Here is my plate at one point during the banquet. The little pot in the top left was filled with meat and vegetables and the waiter lit it when we began and it cooked through the meal and we ate it towards the end. I ate the pretty yellow chrysanthemum too. I could get used to that!


Our group photo after the meal. I am so blessed to have traveled with my group. We laughed a lot and there were some really smart people and I enjoyed their company while we were in Minamisoma.


So now for an explanation and description of the onsen. It's a hot spring and it can include a sulphur bath. I stayed in the hot spring. There was some hesitation on my part because you have to be completely naked when you bathe. No swimwear allowed. I decided to participate because it is a very popular Japanese activity and I wanted to soak up all of the culture that I could. (yes, pun intended!!) I entered what looked like the dressing room of a nice gym, went to the large area of baskets, stripped, got a small towel and headed for the shower stalls. Here's where is was a little weird for me. (yes, I know--for some of you it's gone way past weird already!) My experience with shower stalls is you stand and shower. Not here--they were half as tall so you sat on a stool and used a hand-held shower head and cleaned yourself well. All products and cloths were provided.

Side note: I liked that about all of my Japanese hotels. Your products like shampoo, soap, razor, toothbrush, comb/brush, etc. were provided. The toothbrushes were the perfect size!!

Back to the bath. After a good scrubbing, I headed to the water. It gets real easy real quick--you just don't look. There were probably 40 or 50 ladies in the whole area, but it was big. I headed straight for the outdoor part and I cannot describe to you how FABULOUS it was to soak in hot water with the mist coming off of it, breathing in cold air. All of the tension from the week, the anxiety of the homestay, the exhaustion from concentrating so hard to understand, the travel fatigue, etc., it melted away in that water. It was wonderful to be outdoors and see the trees and the stars. It was very spiritual. We don't have mountains around here and so to be in that setting made it extra special for me. I am very wistful at this moment thinking about it. I'm so glad I did it.
We checked out the next morning and I posted this picture of our waiter from the night before because I want to share something. He came out to the bus to tell us goodbye and bring us candy and he stood and waved the whole time while we took off until we were gone. He did all that just because he wanted to but we didn't tip him--we couldn't tip him. He was one of the best waiters I've ever had and I couldn't give him a dime! It just impressed the heck out of me that he would do all that without the expectation of extra money. I mean, maybe it was in the fee but I don't know. It's just not practiced in Japan. But I ran into people all the time who were friendly and tried to help any way they could with no expectation. I kind of like it. The ryokan was the perfect way to wrap up our time outside of Tokyo.