where cider meets condensed milk: Onsen time!

where cider meets condensed milk

Thursday, February 23, 2006

Onsen time!

Liza, Tyler, myself, Heyward, and Michael at the famous, mixed onsen on Hakkoda-san on Saturday. I'm starting to think that some baths are only famous because they're mixed, and vice-versa. Tricky logic. This onsen was amazing-- really hot sulfury water in an old traditional building, and a large populace of talkative bathers. Also, a much younger, fitter crowd than grandpa-land in Yubara last month-- hotcha! Who needs Hadaka Matsuri (Naked Man Festival in Okayama) when you've got hadaka Aomori? It was so steamy that you couldn't even see across the main bath, so it was like Gaijin in the Mist looking for friends. The sulfur is supposed to be very good for your skin. (Though, I can't imagine that the eau-de-deviled-eggs scent is good for much of anything.)

Heyward and Liza with the keepers of the Hakkoda Onsen. Not mixed, and thus not famous, but still nice. It was so windy on Friday that they closed the ropeway all day, and the skiing conditions were terrible, so Ashizawa-san took a big group of us here mid-morning. It was -14C outside, and the shower pipes were frozen, so we ended up with another sulfur-water splashdown.

The rotemburo (outdoor pool) was gorgeous but disappointingly lukewarm. We had to dash barefoot through the snow to get there, and Liza and I both had icicles for hair after 10 minutes outside!

On one of the clear days-- that's Aomori bay below, and you can faintly see Hokkaido across the water. I got excited every time I made it all the way to the bottom without dying, and sometimes I even gave off the appearance of properly snowboarding rather than looking like some idiot about to lose her balance.

A bunch of foreigners from Aomori also stayed at the lodge on Saturday night, which livened the scene a bit. The Finnish guy in this picture, wearing the hat, is Santa Claus. His hometown sends people to its sister village in Aomori to work at the main town attraction, "Santa World." (Made me think of Kirk working as an elf in North Pole, Alaska.) He didn't admit that he was the REAL Santa, but it was inferred.

With Tyler, Liza, and Kim-san just before leaving. Kim-san, aka Terry, is working at the lodge for the season to guide Korean tourists, and will go back to work at his business in Seoul next month. He lived in the US as a student, so his English is fantastic, and he was hilarious and really sweet.

Cheers to superstar Tyler-sama for all his hard work organizing the whole Powdertopia trip! The grand Tour de Japan-- 17 prefectures, 10 days, more yen than I care to admit-- was fantastic, and I'm madly in love with this country again. Hope this feeling lasts all the way until sakura-blooming time...

posted by Raychaa @ 3:20 PM

1 comments:

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