Japan Holidays (Day11_Kyoto-Hakone)

12 APR 2018 : Day#11 (Kyoto-Hakone)

• Hurray~ Onsen Day! (Onsen = Hot-Springs) Woke up super early even before my alarm rang. Very anxious to go for the Onsen . This is really my first time. Departed via bus to the Kyoto Station. Took the Shinkanzen directly to Odawara stop. This is where I didn't plan well. There's actually a train package available to go up to the peak with more views and sight seeing. Since nothing much was planned, I only bought the ticket to Gora Station then from Gora Station to Sounzan Station. 
• Since it's only for the night we didn't want to bring all of our luggage up. Only the smaller one is with us. Took us some time to find a large locker to keep but none is available. Then we saw the Yamato Express sign which says that we can park our luggage for 24-hours at 800yen.  They could even help to send your luggage to the airport or next destination if you want to. Okay that's cheaper than using the locker. We don't have to worry about paying extra. We left our luggage there and make our way to the train gotten the tickets and made our way.
• Reached Gora Station and stopped by and old restaurant for lunch. Nice home cooked style. Doesn't taste like the usual.
• I managed to reach at 3:30 pm just half an hour after the proposed check in time. The Ryokan staff was already there greeting me happily. Great service with a smile. They prepared slippers and asked us to put our shoes at the rack. They even guaranteed that it will not get misplaced as the rack is for our room and there's someone there all the time. Guided us to the room, wow, nice, typical, interesting. That's all me and hubby could say. Asked us if we wanted to have our dinner at the common area or in the room and dinner time 6:30pm or 7:30pm. Gave us the bath robes, towels, and reading instructions in English. Took the sweet snacks and drank the tea prepared on our arrival. Changed into the robes and off to the Onsen. Before that, please do wear your Yukata right. It's left over right. Not the other way round which is for corpse dressing. Do get yourself hydrated before entering the Onsen.

How to wear a Yukata

How to use Onsen

The Onsen in Yamadaya Ryokan is separated into a female and a male Onsen with interior and exterior. On a certain time, both will be swapped again for you to enjoy the different layouts and angle view of the place. Well from the instructions above, we could summarize as strip yourself naked, find a basket to keep your robes, if you have important stuff, keep it in the room's safe or the locker provided. Then you enter the bath area to rinse yourself for first round then you may enter the Onsen to soak. After few minutes, you can get out and soap yourself to bath. Then you enter again. After few minutes you get out to wash your hair and into Onsen to soak again. Please do not soak for long time at single soak. This is not recommended as it will tire you out and you will faint in the Onsen. Do the repetition to fully enjoy the Onsen.

• After we took the first round, we really felt the refreshing feel as if all the pain and aches all over the body disappears. We were really hungry after the soak. Went back to the room and waited for our dinner. In the middle of the collage picture, that is the dinner we had. Cast iron grilled beef, fist tofu paper steamboat, sashimi, miso soup, picked veggies, egg, sweets dessert, with rice. After dinner, we were served with the sakura red bean mochi dessert wrapped in fresh sakura leaf. 
• After dinner we took a walk around the Ryokan and check out what they have. Then went for a second round of Ryokan before we got back to the room again. Then the guy came in to put up the futons for us to get ready to sleep for the night. (Futons are Japanese style beds).
• Next morning, woke up early for our third round of Onsen before breakfast. In collage picture, the middle left picture was served. There's fish, egg, tofu miso soup, pickled  veggies, nato, salads with rice. That was a well balanced and healthy meal. 
• Then we packed up, check out, collect our luggage in Odawara Station and make our way down to Tokyo.

Words on the Onsen, miracle, refreshing, and healing.

Coming next... Back to Tokyo with more shopping... Tsukiji ... Disney Sea.

I'll be quite busy in preparing the pictures for uploading. Do stay tune to my FLICKR images upload. At the moment please enjoy the collage that I have compiled from my trip.