11/17/2010

It’s Wednesday, and only now I am finally recovering from a long weekend in the mountains of Nikko. As a base for hiking I stayed at “Ryokan Funamisou” onsen/hot spring hotel in Japan’s Tochigi Prefecture (Wiki). Nikko is a tranquil town north of Tokyo, alongside the Kinugawa river famous for the World Heritage site of temples as I described on Friday on here last Friday on the 3Yen. On this trip I decided to skip the temples that I have seen many times and focus on hot springs in the natural countryside.

View from the hotel

Although escaping Tokyo by hiking in the autumn colors of the Nikko mountainsides was a joy after too many months cooped up in the gray concrete metropolis, the high point of my trip was my stay at the onsen hotel. Since I used a retro-tech 35mm film (that still being transferred to a CD) to capture my exploring the river gorge and hills, I will just tell you about my recharging after my hike at the hot spring/onsen.

Unlike most of my experiences in the countryside, this hotel check-in was easy. Even though (or because) I speak Japanese often the staff flips out when an ALIEN guest like me arrives. Thankfully that was not case at Ryokan Funamisou—Check-in went smoothly the staff spoke some English and the man on the night-desk was a Filipino named Michael so we able to joke around at native-English-speaker speed.

The Funamisou is literally a take-your-shoes-and-kick-back kind of place. When you enter, you exchange your shoes at the door for the hotel’s slippers and if you want to pop outside for a moment, you slip on a pair of the hotel’s geta/wooden clogs lined up waiting for you at the front entrance (as shown on the right →).

Since I had a long drive from Tokyo (take the train which is only a few minutes from the hotel) and rather challenging short hike up and down the side of the Kinugawa river gorge, hit the onsen for a quick dip before dinner. I was in such a hurry, I failed to notice I was only bathing in the men’s indoor bath (below) and ….

…and not enjoying the magnificent outdoor hot-spring bath with a commanding view of the Kinugawa river gorge and fall foliage. D’oh!

Here’s a video of one of the outdoors hot springs—a rotenburo pool of the of “Ryokan Funamisou” onsen hotel

(Video taken 2010 Oct. 18th, Monday 06:52am)
Also check out the YouTube video of the Kinugawa river facing the “Ryokan Funamisou” onsen hotel.
(Video taken 2010 Oct. 17th, Sunday 13:10)

After a long soak, I hustled down to the dinning room for a “late” dinner at 6:30 PM (Everything occurs early at Japanese “ryokan” hotels except check-in at 3:30 P.M.).

← To add a bit of excitement, I ordered the Blowfish Dinner Course—Yep, I had a “deadly” dinner of Fugu with a tetrodotoxin that has to be carefully prepared to remove toxic parts (Wiki). The Tora-fugu” was used to make four different courses: a thinly-sliced raw fugu sashimi, slivered skin of fugu hors d’oeuvre, deep fried blowfish (my fav), a fugu Hot Pot with a variety of vegetables, and finally a rice soup made from the broth of the fugu hot pot along with rice, egg and spices. All in all the entire meal was wildly healthy as well as damn tasty.

I was so sated with my royal fugu meal and with all my driving/hiking of the day that I fell asleep on my pristine futon bed before 9 P.M. Actually going to bed early is best at onsen hotel because the hot spring baths open up at 9 A.M. and the wise aficionado of outdoor rotenburo always takes their dip in the quiet, clean silence of the dawn. As a practical matter, at many onsen the hot spring water quality drops after the crowds enter. (However, the Funamisou’s housekeeping is immaculate throughout the facility and the onsen pools have a large volume of new hot spring water that is always crystal clear).

Breakfast is served at two seatings, 7:30 or 8:00 sharp— Snooze and you loose. And, you should not miss the wonders of Japanese breakfast. →
They served me salmon, sautéed spinach, miso soup, mystery pickled veggies and of course Japanese rice. Wow.

How I ever drove home without falling asleep at the wheel from my morning onsen bath and that monster breakfast was a mystery. I’ve gotta do the Funamisou again and try to stay awake, ha, ha.

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