My second onsen experience was in Hakone.
My guesthouse in Hakone has an indoor onsen and an outdoor one. I made a reservation to use the outdoor one since I had a pretty fair share of indoor onsen in the naked amusement park earlier on.
The outdoor onsen is located just outside the guesthouse. I need to lock the door to the outdoor onsen from inside so that I could have the onsen plus the shower rooms to myself. As usual, I was suppose to wash myself before jumping in.
I was abit apprehensive at first because its already winter in Japan. The temperature is a pathetic single digit low and I am suppose to jump into the onsen in my birthday suit =(
After my brief shower, I walked towards the onsen, dressed in the robe provided by the guesthouse, with a tinge of skepticism. I could see the steam coming from the surface of the onsen. I dipped my toe in to test the water. Then my foot. And slowly, i lifted my robe to let my legs into the steaming hot water. I sat at the side of the onsen. I felt I needed a moment for myself. It winter. It cold. I was not sure if I dare to proceed.
I lifted my head and saw the clock on the wall in front of me. Time was ticking by. I only booked the onsen for one slot, which was half an hour. I still need to shower after this. I did not really have much time left. Since I was already here, I was not prepared to go home without trying an outdoor onsen at least once.
I pulled off the robe and sank myself right into the water without a second thought.
Once in the water, I finally understood why Japanese loves Onsen. The feeling was GREAT to put it simply! I was relaxing to soak my aching legs into the hot bath. My shoulders were tired from carrying my Jack Wolfskin bagpack around. I made sure my shoulders were entirely in the water, leaving just my head above the water surface.
I looked around, curious.
I was curious if its indeed a real hot spring. I looked around for wires or any mechanism that could signal this is just water made hot by some thermostat somewhere.
There wasn’t any =)
I played with the water and thought the water felt slimy. Maybe its the algae in the water… yucks.
I soaked till the skin on my fingers were crumpled. When I next look up again, I realised I only have ten minutes left for my reservation. Damn, means I must get out of the comfortable hot water into the cold winter air again. I procrastinated again….
I took one hand out of the water and pulled my robe to as close to me as possible. I tried to lay it out such that I would use the shortest possible time to put it on once out of the water.
I held my breadth… I wanted to get out of the water and into the robe in split second!
I jumped up!
.
.
.
.
But hey wait, I did not feel cold at all? Is that the effect onsen is suppose to have?
Hmm… I happily walked to the shower rooms with the robe in my hand… keke
to be continued…
