Onsen Experience

Today was planned as a relaxing travel day. The plan was to hangout in the morning and then leave Kyoto for Tokyo (our last stop of the trip) in the afternoon.

M and I were perfectly content to relax in the hotel after breakfast and wait for our train. However, Josh being Josh, he planned a morning for us.

About 40 minutes outside the city, is a small mountain town at the base of Mount Kurama. This little village has little tourist appeal outside a few religious sites, a couple decent hiking trails and a newly opened onsen.

An onsen is a hot spring and the associated bathing facilities. They are a huge part of Japanese culture and with as many active volcanoes as Japan has, they are found everywhere.

I’m definitely a spa girlie and with the achy knee I’ve had the whole trip, a soak in some hot, natural, mineral water sounded amazing. Josh knew I wouldn’t be able to say no to a trip the the Onsen while he and M hiked up the mountain to (yep, you guessed it) a temple and a shine.

The Onsen experience was incredible. Unique and peaceful. I would rate it 10 out of 10. Photos were strictly prohibited (but I was alone at the indoor tubs for a while and did snap a couple photos).

Onsen etiquette is really important and so I spent the train ride and a bit of our delicious lunch (we found a random spot with amazing udon, fried deer and wild boar) reading the rules online.

This particular Onsen was attached to a hotel and it appeared the patrons were mostly tourists. Which was probably good, as my dive into Onsen culture was brief and surface level and I probably did several things wrong.

The first test is making it into the correct locker room. Onsens are segregated by gender. Women’s area typically has a red lattice on the door. Men’s areas have blue.

Once inside you have to strip down. Yep. All the way down. One must be completely nude to enter the Onsen. They do give you a small - and I mean very small - towel for covering up as you walk to the tubs.

The only things allowed inside the water are clean bodies. This mean hair has to be pulled up and you have to thoroughly wash your body and hair - in front of everyone - before you get in. Outside the tubs are small stools, bowls and shower heads along with soap, shampoo and conditioner. You plop down and take a whole bath.

Then you can head to the tub. At the tub there are small barrel where you pour the water on your body before entering in order to acclimate to the temperature. You start pouring on your feet and legs then work you way up.

After all this, you can get in and soak. No splashing. No swimming. No loud talking. No tattoos (in most places, but I did see one lady with a small tat on her leg).

After soaking, you use a larger towel they give you for drying off completely before entering the locker room.

Why can’t you use the larger towel for covering up instead of the small towel? Well, I tried this and the larger towel got soaked near the pools and then I had nothing to dry off with except my tiny little washcloth. Not ideal. I should have stuck to the system.

This Onsen has two sets of pools. One indoor with a still water pool, a jetted tub, a sauna and a cold plunge pool. The outdoor area was just one large still pool but it was located in this beautiful garden with sunshine and chirping birds. It was incredibly relaxing. No photos there because it was fairly busy the whole time.

I spent a couple hours bouncing from pool to pool and enjoying the silence. After I finished I had a drink at the attached cafe (floor seats and all!) and then walked back down the mountain trail leading to the Onsen to join Josh and M at the train station.

While I was relaxing, Josh and M went hiking to a shrine. Apparently the All Trials app was a little misleading and the 30 minute hike took them 1.5 hours just to get there. M grew restless. Demanded ice cream. There was some light rain. Josh ended up calling a taxi for the ride back to the train station! Haha. And I don’t blame him one bit.