Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Ryokan day 15?


I don't know, I have lost track of days. Well, a ryokan is a traditional japanese inn. It is always located at a hot spring which you can soak in, like a bath. These are called onsen. These are pretty fancy and quite expensive so I feel very grateful to have gotten the opportunity to stay in one. I wouldn't have if I was just a tourist. The rooms are big, like a suite, but you share them with other people. There were 2 other women that I shared with. The room looked like a large living room with tatami mats and a low table. At night you roll out your futon. But when we first got there, a lady from the hotel came in wearing a kimono and made our tea for us. There were sweets waiting for us too. After tea, we got on our yukata. These are like casual kimono which is what you wear in a ryokan. We got to walk around the hotel in a robe and slippers they whole time! I felt like royalty. We went to the onsen baths to relax and then got ready for dinner. For dinner, we had a whole room for ourselves (there were 18 of us, plus our guide Kato-san) We ate a HUGE feast with more courses than I could count. We ate the most expensive foods you could get. And almost all of it had.... FUGU FISH! We had fugu soup, fugu tea, fugu sake, fugu sashimi, fugu sushi, fried fugu.... you get the idea. Remember, fugu can be deadly so we were all a little nervous but it tasted so good that we soon forgot about our worries and trusted the japanese cooks. We were given a karaoke machine for the room and before long we were singing our hearts out and dancing in our yukata (robes). I even did a fugu impersonation! Staying in the ryokan was one of the most memorable parts of this trip.

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