Onsen and lots of talking

First up I think I forgot to mention name of the band yesterday and the post title was bit of a word play from the band name(°C-ute).

Anyway today I was going to meet with the Finnish speaking Japanese person I had met earlier and rendezvous with his friend and continue from there to Onsen. Though first up we went to place called ワープステーション江戸(waapusuteeshon edo. No idea if it has any specific meaning). It's basically place where is lots of Edo period movie sets that were used to(are still used?) to shoot movies. Lots of old style buildings, some looking bit more like Meiji period looking, mostly very traditional looking. Unfortunately it was raining pretty hard and my shoes seems to be pretty worn down already and don't hold water at all like they used to. And the ground also was old styled sand roads so thanks to rain it was quite a difficult walk!

I took pictures but due to the very slow uploading(still uploading third day's of Kyoto trip pictures) I'll post them later.

After this we went to the Onsen. Wasn't nearly as bad as I feared(only kids were staring! And that's pretty normal ;). First 1000 yen payment, then we decided to first take bath and then lunch. Strip down to naked, take smallish towel with you and go to shower. I read somewhere you take the shower while sitting, NOT standing. But then just rinse yourself with water. Then time for the main fun. We could have went for inside bath tubes but instead straight to outside(at least rain had bit lessened. And yes I asked and Japanese do go outside bath even in winter!). The water was not quite as hot as I expected(maybe the baths in homes are actually hotter than these waters? Come to think of it aren't these supposed to be hot springs so aren't artificially heated up? Would explain that!) but then again it still got quite hot after a while. Sure was nice for my aching body! I could get addicted to this feeling!

As said kids who were there kept looking at me(ha ha). One old man actually decided he was curious enough to interrupt and ask couple questions even though he kept apologizing for interrupting(hey I did not at least mind it at all!). Guess he got curious enough when he heard 2 Japanese and foreigner speaking in mix of Japanese and some strange language he(likely) didn't recognize :D (well that IS pretty unusual combination probably. Not just foreigner speaking Japanese but two Japanese speaking something other than Japanese or English).

Speaking of Finnish it was pretty unreal feeling sitting in car talking in mix of Finnish and Japanese with Finnish pop songs sounding in background. Definitely not on my list of things I expect to happen when I get to Japan!

After this(and I actually felt bit dizzy from having lied in the hot water so long) we went back in, washed ourselves and then lied bit more in the inside bath tubes(hmm maybe that's actually proper order of turns so it would have bad bad bad to go straight to inside bath without washing yourself with soap or something). Inside bath tubes had also vibration effect which I loved to help with my back. As Japanese say kimochi ii!

Then was time for lunch for which I ate chicken cut set and drank cup of cold oolong tea. Love that stuff! And no sugar filled syrup tyvm! Straight up for me.

After this I was not quite sure what the plan was but as it turns out we went to Fukuroda falls. Oh my. Kegon falls just met their winner! Particularly at the lower platform view was quite nice as the falls seemed to be only few meters away(though that was mostly optical illusion) and the falls were wide and strong. The mist it created was enough to soak you even from some distance. At the rail my glasses went soaking went in moments. And the roaring sound! Hard to speak with anybody in that noise. Awesome sight.

Day was still not over though as we went to home of the 2nd Japanese where we met her wife(whom we had met earlier but did not come to Onsen due to flu). After bit of talking over tea(certainly got lots of talking in Japanese today! Plus talking in Finnish which is bit unusual activity in Japan for sure!) we went for dinner. I had sake for drink(and after that another oolong tea. 2nd bottle(even though small) would have been bad as I felt positively tipsy by the time bottle was finished up!) and we had basically various types of meat, takoyaki, fish and vegetables for food. All good.

After this time to head home as it was quite a far north where we had originally went and even from the home of the persons we met it would be good hour to get to Tokyo. I met the first person around 8 am and we parted our ways around 9 pm so 13 hours with them. Lots of chance to talk in Japanese and Finnish for sure.

I'll post pictures in another post when I get them up. Tomorrow will be resting and doing laundry.