This is it! For the next month or so we’re going to be traveling throughout Asia on our Epic Asia Trip. We’re going to see some family, lots of old friends, and make tons of new ones! I’m stoked out of my mind right now!
Things couldn’t have worked out better for the flight over. We got to sit next to each other with an empty seat in-between us, which really meant that we got to spread out, get comfortable, and get some sleep on the flight. Like always, I got pretty hungry, but fortunately mom packed me some hard-boiled eggs to keep me going.
After we got to the house we had a few hours before it would be dinner time. We definitely wanted to go check some things out! We went to tell Keiko that we wanted to go walk around the neighborhood a bit, but she had a way better idea. She said because we’re both “challengers” we would probably want to go do something like….ONSEN!
Unfortunately (or I suppose fortunately) we don’t have any pictures of going to the onsen. Oh! So onsen are hot springs. This is my third visit to Japan and somehow I have never been to the before!! (What was I thinking??? They’re amazing!) Anyway, let me walk you through the experience.
First, we went in and Keiko explained a little to us about how it would all work. You separate into men and women, you go into the locker room, you take off all your clothes, and then you go enjoy the onsen.
I thought that all sounded good until I walked into look and was like..uh…these guys are really naked. hahaha. But once I actually went in it only took a minute or two to get over that because everyone else in there is totally over it.
There were all sorts of different tubs with ones with hot water, very cold water, CO2 water, electrified water (although I think this may be only the girls side because I never found it), and a couple of saunas.
The first tub I hopped into looked pretty innocent, just bubbles, but when I sat down I noticed a weird pain in my lower back. Actually, my whole body started to feel pretty strange, and I remembered Keiko saying something about an "electric bath" where they run electric currents through the water! I looked at the sign next to the tub, and sure enough, there was a picture of a stick figure being shocked by underwater voltages. What a crazy thing. All of the other tubs were very relaxing and nice though, and I think it's safe to say that I'm pretty obsessed with onsens now. There's something great about the culture of acceptance that's prevalent at onsens, at first I got a few curious looks for my distinct non-Japanese appearance, but mostly everyone just ignored each other and enjoyed themselves without being weird about anything.
My favorite was…lying out on the wood outside. That was actually really fantastic. I also enjoyed the massaging water, and I loved the saunas. One sauna had salt that you could use to rub all over your body (to exfoliate). That was great. The other had sumo wrestling on TV!! My first time ever watching sumo wrestling and it was hanging out with a bunch of naked, old Japanese men together in a sauna.
To sum it up: we are now huge fans of onsen.
Dinner was fantastic. Keiko prepared something using potato-based noodles that was delicious, she made salad with a soy sauce-based dressing, she bought us sushi, and she even offered us….NATTO!!!
Natto is super weird. It’s smelly, full of very sticky beans? and it does not taste good. I had to try some because earlier I said I would, and it actually wasn’t as bad as I thought. Maybe it’s because last summer I finally started eating stinky tofu? Keiko was very proud of me and I think so was Lei. haha.
The potato noodles had NO CALORIES. What a crazy thing. Keiko is such a fantastic host, and a great chef too! She really loved challenging us, and brought Ray some natto. I have some experience with the dish (not a huge fan) so I passed on trying it, but Ray ate some and did a really good job of holding it down. What a champ.
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