Matt here.
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| Girl and boy infront of train |
No trip to Japan would be complete without a trip to an Onsen (hot spring), and today was the day. We chose the hot spring resort of Ito partly because I've never been there before and partly because we fancied a ride on the "Super View Odoriko" limited express train. Nik spotted this striking-looking train on the model railway layout at the train museum and decided she'd like a go on it.
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| View from back carriage |
It was a fairly leisurely morning, and we left the flat around 10.30, got the Yamanote line up to Tokyo, where we boarded our express. It was certainly very plush, with the passengers sitting up very high in the coaches and all 10 coaches having huge wrap-around observation car-style windows.
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| Soft play area (or bunk beds?!) |
We had reserved seats near the middle of the train, but I'd found out in advance that one of the end cars had a kids' room on the lower deck, so we headed there. It was comfy, with lots of brightly coloured sofas to loll about on, but the view wasn't as good as from the upper deck, so we headed upstairs. The train was far from full, so we actually nabbed the seats at the very back of the train, where there was a great view out through the huge cab windows, back down the line. We stayed there all the way to Ito (almost an hour and a half), and got off feeling very relaxed. Not nearly as fast as a shinkansen, but what it lacks in speed, it certainly makes up for with great views and good looks.
Ito is a sleepy little hot spring town on the Izu Peninsula, one of Japan's most seismically active areas. The population is only about 70,000, but there are apparently about 700 individual hot springs within the town. Fortunately, the town centre is quite compact, and we found lunch in a little local restaurant only about a minute's walk from the station. Tempura donburi for me, Chinese style fried noodles for Nik, generous portions of both for the boy (of course).
After lunch, we headed to the tourist information centre, to ask about where we could take the waters. As it happened, there was a public bath house only a couple of minutes walk away, but it didn't open until 2.00, meaning that we had about half an hour to kill, which we did by wandering round the shopping streets and getting a couple of chores done (buying garlic and printing off some photos).
The bath house turned out to be a dead loss. Despite turning up exactly at opening time, the surly woman behind the desk informed us brusquely that all the family bath rooms were full, which was clearly nonsense. I think she just didn't want 3 foreigners in her facility.
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| Red faced onsen boy! |
So, back to the very friendly lady in the information centre, who didn't seem surprised by grumpy woman's reaction and happily pointed us in the direction of the next nearest bath house, which we found easily. On a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being budget and 10 being luxury, this ranked at about 0.5 - probably the most basic Onsen I've ever visited. All in, including towel purchases, it was less than a fiver for the three of us. It was very far from luxurious, but the feeling of being immersed up to your neck in natural hot water is still fantastic. Natural spring water always leaves your skin feeling great.
As is often the case though, you do see some ghastly sights in onsens, and I'm not talking about Tom's skinny white body. While we were soaking, an old guy who looked like the walking dead got in with us. Hard to guess his age and weight, but I'd estimate about 160 and 3 stone respectively. The ghastly bit, however, was the catheter tube he had crudely taped to his hips, which he then dipped in the bath. I made a mental note not to drink the bath water. So frail did he look, I was half expecting him to expire in the bath there and then.
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| Splashing in the sea |
Nik here - pretty much the same experience for me, although no catheter. I was at least 40 years younger than anyone else and certainly the fattest. It was the domain of very very old ladies going there for a good scrub and gossip. One came for a look at me, but the others were fine and one even lent me some soap - as Matt says it was a very basic onsen. I think many would have taken one look and refused to go in, but as Matt says we all left feeling pretty good.
We all came out looking like freshly boiled lobsters - the bath temperature was pretty much perfect for me. After a refreshing drink outside, we walked the few yards to the beach, where we spent a pleasant half hour or so splashing in the sea (Nik & Tom) or enjoying the feeling of the dark, abrasive volcanic sand giving our feet a good scrub (me).
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| Our train home, not as good as the one we got here in the morning |
We then wandered slowly back to Ito station, stopping to buy tea, beer & rice crackers for the journey home. We had a good yak with a JR guard while waiting for our train. He seemed to take a shine to Tom (surprise surprise), and even offered him his train conductor's hat and his job (saying it was very easy). Tom declined, but it was an amusing exchange.
The lad remembered that the shinkansen stop at Atami, another hot spring town just up the line, and ordered us to change there on the way back so that we could have a high speed ride. We spent about 25 minutes on the platform, watching the Nozomi trains pass through at high speed, before getting a Kodama stopping service back to Shinagawa. We passed the journey by blogging (me) and scrap-booking (N & T).
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| Nice pic of the two of us |
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| Chewing on chicken wings |
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| A tower of potato salad |
Well, we're now back from dinner, and what a dinner it was. We'd already decided to eat in one of the myriad of eateries around Hamamatsu-cho station, but our decision was somewhat forced upon us by someone suddenly saying he was desperate for the loo (despite saying he didn't need to go about 3 minutes earlier). So, we headed to an underground Yakitori (grilled chicken) restaurant about 2 yards from where our toilet discussion took place, and we lucked out big time. Every one of the 8 or so dishes we ordered was delicious, the service was excellent, and the first round of beers came with shōchū (rice whisky) chasers. We all loved it and came home with very happy tummies. The place was full to brimming with salarymen. Apparently Tom was the first child the waitress had ever seen in the place!
A good day all round.
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