 A Clean Break - Arima Onsen
Will Yong takes the plunge in a Japanese hot spring.....
All hotels have hot water but Japan's top onsen resorts are still worth
splashing out on.
Everybody in the lobby was wearing the same cotton bathrobe as I was.
Blue for the boys, deep red for the girls. I'd died and gone to a paradise
where the angels wore yukata. Everyone was wearing the same, everybody
had the same plans - a bath before dinner then a good night's sleep. Put
it that way and it doesn't sound like much. If I tell you that one night
in this paradise cost me ¥30,000 (US$300), I've certainly got some
explaining to do.
Just as naturally as the water from hot springs bubbles up from the ground,
the Japanese channel it into stress-melting baths. In many places around
Japan, whole towns have been built where springs gush forth and they take
the name "onsen". It's a welcome silver lining for a country bedeviled
by seismic activity. The violence of volcanoes and earthquakes are some
distance from the mind as you soak in a mineral-rich hot tub with a view.
Arima Onsen is one of these towns and one of the most sought after at
that. High up in the mountains, with city folks doing city things at ground
level, Arima doesn't pretend to be anything more than a village of ryokan,
dedicated to the pleasure-seeker. Ours was the Arima Grand, a traditional
Japanese ryokan - all nine floors of it.
Don't be misled. Many of Japan's most renowned traditional-style inns
are as large as a Hilton, and modern enough to be at home in New York.
What puts them in the same class as more historic establishments is the
way that you want for nothing for the time you are there.
Our kimono-clad attendant matched the peachy tones of the carpet and
walls perfectly. She led us to our room, and while we were sipping the
green tea she had promptly made and enjoying the traditional sweets laid
on for us, she stowed our grizzled trainers, replacing them with identical
pairs of open-backed slippers. After she handed us our yukata (bathrobes),
I got the impression that we weren't meant to leave.
In fact, quite the point of the modern ryokan is to give you the
best night in you could possibly have. All the essentials are in place.
Starting with the baths.
In Japan it's traditional to bathe before dinner. A long, hot bath where
getting clean is really only a preliminary. You wash thoroughly first -
outside the baths of course - with the showers and taps that line the walls.
Then you take your pick. I began with the sauna followed by the cold bath
shock treatment. I felt like I had to earn my relaxation with a bit of hardship
first. Slipping into the piping hot bath afterwards was tentatively done
but only a few minutes after getting comfortable, I spotted an irresistible
door leading outside.
The rotemburo (outdoor bath) was lined with wood and overlooked
the tree-clad valley. Strategically-placed shrubs hid our nakedness from
any passersby who cared to look from far below, but as I stood after a
good while to get a better view, it was them that looked sillier, bundled
and trussed in all their clothes. I was pure and free, like the steam
rising off my body.
Being reduced to a kind of human jelly by the heat reminds you of things
that your body tries to tell you. Aches disappear that you didn't realise
you had, tension simply melts away. Most of all though, it makes you hungry.
Dinner comes relatively early at a ryokan
but it's something to be savoured over a long period.
Dinner isn't compulsory and many ryokan offer room-only rates
which are significantly cheaper. But why miss the Ferris wheel at the
funfair? Kaiseki ryori at a top class ryokan is not to be passed
up.
My dinner tray was a miniature landscape of morsels, each in its own
little dish of rustic pottery or deep, black lacquer. Not everything was
identifiable, but matching flavours to colours and shapes became part
of the adventure - and that first spread was only the beginning. The next
dish arrived and then the next and, pretty soon, harking back to the beginning
of the meal was like revisiting good memories. What's more, I didn't taste
the same thing twice and after 15 different courses, I couldn't touch
the plain rice served at the end. I was, however, assured that it was
delicious.
After dinner, I milled around the souvenir shop. The angels drifted by
in little clusters. Young couples smiled contentedly, groups of wizened
old friends clucked over the neatly packaged regional delicacies - you
can always try before you buy.
Already, I was looking forward to breakfast the next day. It turned out
to be rice (I'm glad I got to eat some in the end), pickles, boiled egg,
dried fish and tofu. I swallowed my preconceptions about what was breakfast
food and what wasn't and didn't regret it.
But that was still a good night's sleep away. Ambling past the discrete
entrance to the hotel's very own pachinko parlour, I made a plan to visit
the 9th floor baths before breakfast was due to be brought up. Bathing
in the morning is not traditional in Japan but there were plenty of people
breaking the rules with me.
We were treated to a gentle dusting of snow drifting down and to one
side of the rotemburo roof. Some of it was wafted under the canopy
by the breeze and the odd flake melted on my forehead. Each one was ample
reason to stay exactly where I was, as if I needed further convincing.
Other snowflakes went straight to hell. Frozen water from the sky meeting
water bubbling up from the earth's inner rumblings.
But that was a yet to come. By and by, our maids laid the futons out
and bed beckoned. Here again the yukata comes into its own. It's fine
to sleep in as well as spend the day in so I didn't even have to change
for bed - having nothing to do had never been such a pleasure. In my standard
issue robe and slippers I wondered how much more relaxed I could be when
I had even left my everyday clothes behind.
Arima Access
To Arima-onsen resort, 35 minutes from Shin-Kobe Station to Arima-onsen
by bus. 55 minutes from Osaka Station to Arima-onsen by bus.
Tokyo I Kyoto I Fukuoka I Gero Onsen I Hakone I Hiroshima I Ibaraki I Kamakura I Kobe I Magome & Tsumago I Nagasaki I Nagoya I Nara I Niigata I Nikko I Oita I Okinawa I Osaka I Saitama I Sakurajima I Sapporo I Sendai I Shizuoka I Shodoshima I Tsukuba I Yokohama
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