The Onsen experience and Kyoto

Friday, 28 April 2014

After a 5 hour jet lagged fitful sleep I was about to endure one of the most awkward shower experiences of my life. The capsule hotel offered a traditional bathing setting known as an onsen. This is involves stripping naked in an ante room, stuffing your clothes in a provided locker and entering an adjacent bathing room. Inside the white tiled bathing room sat a Jacuzzi and along one wall a bunch of small stools with flexible shower heads tapped into the wall. The idea is to sit on the stool, give yourself a once over with the shower head followed by a dip in the Jacuzzi tub where you properly wash yourself with soap. Committed to getting the full Japanese experience I decided to go for it with about as much confidence as a fat kid on swimming pool day.

Fortunately the onsen was not brimming with other people, instead I shared it with one other guy. Clearly we were both first timers. Fumbling with our clothes, the tip toing into the bathing room. We exchanged head nods, both accepting we were here for nothing more than human hygiene care. Sitting naked around the Jacuzzi, we eventually made small talk, he correctly identified I was American, I thought he was Indian (he was Bangladeshi, whoops). I made a half assed attempt at soaping my body and got out of there. Later that morning during checkout I saw the same guy and made eye contact. We both knew what we were thinking.

With that behind us we departed the capsule hotel and made our way to the Shinkansen (Bullet trains) station for our journey to Kyoto. The trains themselves were not only quite long, but very wide. Seats sat 3 a piece, two rows with a large aisle separating them. Windows were large and we had plenty of leg room. The four of us has purchased a “weekly pass” (not cheap) allowing us unlimited travel on the Shinkansen for a 7 day period.

2.5 hours later we arrived in Kyoto (saw my first Geisha!), met up with Abbey and the 5 of us took a cab to our hostel. We dropped off our luggage and wandered around the central district. Had lunch with Karen and Craig in some hole in the hall restaurant – Lauren and Abbey decided on a vegetarian restaurant nearby. I did NOT come to Japan for vegetarian food!

We took the Kyoto Metro to a large park near the edge of the city. Inside we walked around various gardens eventually coming to a large 2 story Japanese temple covered in gold. The temple overlooked this small lake and looked very imposing and impressive.

Post golden temple, we strolled around a large park in the center of town. A huge squat off limits castle sat in center of the park. The cherry blossoms were blooming and many a Kyotoian (just made that up) was ogling the trees. Some had large cameras with lenses the size of elephant trunks pointed within inches of the petals.

We rounded out the day with further walking around town and dinner consisting of some soup based meal.

Our hostel for the evening was made of rooms with bunk style beds, except each bed was walled off on all four corners with Japanese styled sheets giving the occupant a degree of privacy.

Observations so far: The taxis here, like in London, all appear to be of a same model car, resembling a 90’s Mercedes.  The back passenger door opens and closes at the flick of switch controlled by the driver. Set into the sidewalk are yellow plastic tiles with rows of raised lips, they run the length of the sidewalks all around time. These are for blind people to navigate by. Apparently blindness is a huge problem in Japanese society so they’ve done everything they can to accommodate people with this disability. Before every meal we are given little warm towellettes to clean our hands. The locals are friendly and accommodating.