Saturday, November 29, 2008

First Onsen Experience, いい だな!


Let me start off by saying I'm terrified of the nudity thing, I'm even embarrassed to be in a bathing suit. But to let that keep me from experiencing the Onsen would be such a shame, especially since Beppu is well known for hot spring resorts. I had to do the Love Hina hot spring thing at least once before leaving Japan! These hot springs are all over the town, varying in modern, to old style traditional resorts. The older ones tend to be hotter in temperature.

So on Saturday we went to Beppu to check out Hyotan hot spring. It was 700JPY($7) for an adult admission and 200JPY($2) for the yukata rental so we could do the sand bath too. So yea.. back in Highschool even though I took gym and had to change in the locker rooms, me and a lot of other girls managed to avoid the social naked awkwardness by changing in the showers (don't worry it was clean! ... apparently people in my school never showered, now thas nasty!). So I never experienced the room full of naked others, until yesterday O____O. For once in my life I was happy that I have bad vision because I quickly took my glasses off so I wouldn't have to see a thing!

While the naked part is still bizarre and I would prefer some clothes over complete public nakedness, I guess it's not as bad as I was expecting. Don't get me wrong, it's still bad! but not THAT bad. I would definitely do it again.



Oh and on 2 completely random notes, in Japan, the food you order off the menu looks almost exactly like what they bring to you. It's awesome, even fast food items comes out the same way. This can also be a bad thing too, because if you see 4 slices of green beans in the picture, that's exactly how many you're going to get. The quality and quantity matches the photo. That Mega Muffin was delicious by the way.

and before we went to Beppu I went to buy a towel for the hot spring, and I accidentally left my towel in my bike basket at the train station. When I came back 6 hours later it was still there undisturbed! how great is that?? that kind of thing never happens in America, you blink once and somebody might snatch the panties right off you! the low crime rate is definitely one of the many perks of living in Japan.

No comments: