Hello and greetings. I have not forgotten about the site. Before I had nothing to write, but this time I had no internet connection to write with. For the last two days I was in the mountains, but I wasn’t skiing or snowboarding, or doing any winter sport type activity. I was staying at a onsen. This wasn’t my first trip to the onsens, I went to Yamanashi last summer and spent went to a couple of onsens there. This was however the first time I spent at a Ryokan onsen. Which is basically a Japanese style onsen hotel. Ryokans come in all different shapes and sizes, and also architectural design, but I will get back to this later.
We traveled to Kitagawa-onsen, in Tochigi-ken which is the closest town to where we needed to go. This is about two hours outside of Toyko by way of the Tobu line. From Kitagawa-onsen we took a bus and headed up to the onsen, another 90 minutes away. The onsen was nestled in the mountains and on the banks of a river. One of the most amazing parts is that the whole place was snow covered. This was a first for me too, last time I went to an onsen it was the summer and raining. I had hoped to visit a onsen when it was snowing and I’m glad I did. The onsen featured a male and female as well as two private rotenburo’s (outdoor baths). The building is more modern in look, nothing like the ones that look like they were from the Edo period. The outdoor baths did have an old style feel to them, with a form that made them look they had always been there, or taking the shape of old wooden bath tub with water coming out of a tree trunk pipe. Since these baths were located outdoors they were freezing cold and there was snow all over the place so we needed to watch our step when walking around. The first time I was in the outdoor baths the sun started to set and it was a pretty amazing sight to see. The snow all around in a hot bath with the sky turning all these shades or orange and red. I forgot about the time just and almost missed dinner because of it. More on my adventure later on. I’ll post pictures tomorrow if I can.
