my onsen adventures - part 3

it took me a while to finally get the hang of onsen, and to love it, but i got there. in my second year in Japan, i made it to Kurokawa, an amazing onsen place. it's a tiny village with 412 inhabitants, very narrow and undrivable streets. it was incredible! people were wondering from one bathhouse to the next in their yukata. it was like a movie set. and that's where i experienced my most peaceful baths ever. Yamamizuki was by far the nicest, being as it was by a river, with each bath being surrounded by beautiful Japanese maple trees.

then, in my last year, i went up north, to Akita-ken, and spent a whole weekend in another tiny onsen village (not really a village, just a street, really, and then again, all of it is just the housing. ok, let's say it was just one onsen ryokan [traditional Japanese inn]). this one was covered in snow (about 5m). it was about -5C outside, but the best bath of them all was definitely the outdoor one (rotemburo). although i think we tried most of the baths (all supposedly good for different ailments), i preferred that outdoor one, and spent hours on end there. the weekend went like this: eat/bathe/sleep/bathe/eat/bathe/sleep/bathe/eat/bathe/eat. the second day, it snowed hard, so while we were sitting there, about 10 cms of snow accumulated on top of our heads. it was the most amazing experience ever! and that's also when i discovered those waters actually do have an effect: my stomach went into overdrive trying to get rid of toxins and whatnot. it's made me a believer!