Ryokan and Hot Springs ......

Day 9

In all the time I have been coming to Japan, the one thing I really wanted to do was stay at a traditional Ryokan and try the hot springs or as they are also known - Onsens. Onsens are public baths in inns, hotels or in our case, Ryokans. As this trip was all about the rural, this was going to be the perfect opportunity to squeeze in a overnight stay at an Ryokan and see some amazing sights.

I wanted to go to Shirakawago and Takayama, but they are quite a distance from Kyoto and would have meant spending most of our time travelling, so a night in a ryokan in Takayama is it!!!!

So - up early (again!!!) to catch the 08:15 train to Nagoya, then catch the 10:56 to Takayama ..... All told this would take us just over five hours. The journey to Nagoya on the Bullet Train was uneventful .... But we spent about an hour in Nagoya waiting for the next train and I noticed this sign outside the train station..... Nagoya are very strict!!!!!

We now caught the Hida Wide View Express train. We guessed it might have big windows - and it did!!! After about 20 minutes on the train, a recorded voice started telling us about the area we were in and pointing out areas of interest..... Amazing!!  The scenery was beautiful and we could see the trees going red and yellow - and even the snow on the mountain tops.

We eventually made it to Takayama and you could tell we were in the mountain ranges as the weather was a lot chiller than it had been in Kyoto, but so fresh. We couldn't check into our Ryokan until 3, so we had a couple of hours to kill. So we wandered round Takayama taking in the sights.  It's a very pretty town And Takayama is known for keeping its traditional roots. We came across the beautifully preserved old town where all the houses are traditional wood and some date back to the Edo period ..... Very old!!!

Some of the houses are open to the public and a lot of the shops are in the traditional state... It made a real change from city scapes.

It's getting closer to 3pm and I'm getting more and more excited about the ryokan...... So eventually Scott gave in and we arrived at the door of Ryokan Tanabe at 2:45 ....... We were greeted warmly by Tanabe san herself and she checked us in.  After check in, we were handed over to a lovely elder Japanese lady (and to our eternal shame, we did not get her name) and she gave us our yukata so. These are a type of summer kimono and also known as bathing clothes.  These are what we would wear during our stay.

Our lovely lady showed to our room and it was quite big...... There was also a large cypress bath tub, so we could do our own hot spring bathing if we wanted to. She then explained the bathing rooms.... Separate for men and women and gave us a leaflet on bathing etiquette.

So, we now had a couple of hours before dinner would be served, so we hit the baths. Oooooohhhhh!!!! What an experience - and to top it all, we both had the baths to ourselves. There is one large bath indoors and two smaller outdoor baths and they were piping hot (sorry - no photos allowed - well there are naked people in here!!!) 

I spent AGES in the bath aching my poor bones ....... And it looked like Scott had the same idea!!!  We both thought it would be a good idea to get out and cool down before dinner.

Dinner was going to be served in our room.

Dinner would be Kaiseki style.... This means there would be a lot of different dishes in one go. Now, from the look of our food (and as best as our lady could describe to us), we had:

Hida Beef
Sashimi
Rice
Savoury Steamed egg custard
Seafood combo
Cold soba noodles with a raw egg
Miso soup
Tofu
A mix of various pickled veg

And many other things that I don't and never will know what they were!!! All these dishes were carefully placed on our table by our lady and once finished, she left us to it. 

I am soooo impressed with Scott though as he dug straight in and ate almost everything - though there are a lot of those things he will never eat again!!  There were also two desserts - Apple pudding and a creme caramel which were also delicious. It took us about an hour to get through all the food and by the end we were completely stuffed.

The lady came back in and cleared the dishes away and then moved the table ..... It was then an elderly gentlemen arrived and he proceeded to get out the futons and make our beds!!! 

So - now we awe completely stuffed and very relaxed, but as it was still early, we thought we would hit the baths one more time ...... 

We both slept like logs that night!!!!

We were getting up quite early the next morning as we were catching the 9:50 bus to Shirakawago, so we booked breakfast for 8am. Again, this was a japanese breakfast with many dishes .... None of which included cornflakes or rice crispies as Scott as hoping!!!

Here we had makerel, miso soup, salad, rice, nori (seaweed), egg, yakult (!) and lots of green tea. We were still quite stuffed from last nights dinner, but we made a bloody good effort with breakfast!!!

We checked out of the ryokan after having a good old natter with Tanabe san, despite the fact that neither of us understood each other haha!!

So - it was off to catch the bus to Shirakawago ........