Ryokan traditional Japanese hotel

After leaving our homestay families in Kamisu, where many tears were shed, we drove about 2 hours north to Tskuba, to visit a ryokan, or traditional Japanese hotel, which has a natural hotspring located in the basement area. Ours was located about halfway up Mt. Tskuba situated in the picture below.

Although it was lightly raining, before dinner, my roomate Josh and I hiked up a series of steps towards a Buddhist temple and Shinto shrine and then beyond, heading upwards towards the summit of the mountain, and the scenery was everything you ever imagined Japan would be like, and then some. The pictures below say more than I can with words.

It was absolutely lush and breathtaking. Hiking was an excellent choice. The dinner when we returned was a spectacular array of fish and sundry pickled vegetables, relish, escargot, mushrooms, sukiyaki, squid. Just look at the pictures. Exquisite.





After that, some of us went to take the hot baths, which was also very interesting, since it’s a public bath and everybody is naked (though the men and women are separated). This of course is not for the modest tourist, but to the typical Japanese this is just their custom. But as they say, when in Rome…

So in a similar fashion to the bathing experience at the home stay, one must cleanse himself with soap and shampoo, and rinse off completely before entering the water. The idea is that the water should be cleaner when you leave than it was when you entered. So, after disrobing and de-slippering in one room, you move into a room with 6-8 open air bathing stations in a large, tiled room. You lather up and rinse off, and then enter a kind of warming pool of natural hotspring water to adjust your body temperature for the next pool. This pool, however, is in no way warm or luke-warm. It’s downright hot, and is a foretaste of things to come. So, sitting there, soaking, looking out slightly fogged floor-to-ceiling windows onto a serene hillside landscape, listening only to your thoughts and the trickling of water flowing from a spout in the side of the wall, you look around at the other men, some sitting on the side, easing in, while others, like me, submerge themselves to their chins, feeling the tingling, burning hug of the water warming and healing their bodies. This pre-soak only lasts about 2-3 minutes, and then standing up, you go through a door to an open-air pool outside, lined with large rocks, and you enter it and soak some more. The pre-soaking pool in no way prepares you for the heat out here. It’s scalding, but not bubbling. Hotter than hot, and sensational. Birds chirping in the background, the foliage surrounding you a striking array of lush greens and browns, and this water as ancient as the ritual you are a part of. After soaking in silence with strangers, you wander back to your room to rest, allowing your body and blood pressure to readjust, and the medicine of the water and heat to work.

Although my roommate, Josh, snored all night, I was still able to get a good 5 hours in. When I woke up, I went down for another bath and found myself alone there, until an older Japanese man came in. We said “Ohio gozaimasu” and then sat and soaked in silence. It was serene, peaceful, and contemplative. Then I went to my room, made some green tea, sat at this very table and wrote the following poems, which may sound reminiscent of what I just said, and that’s because I wrote them first for a memory cue when writing the blog:

“A view from my room”
--Ryokan, Tskuba-city

carved into the hillside
stream working against stone
a slow, steady pace
murmuring for an eternity

aged legs, wrinkled with time
deeply dug into soft soil
holding back the steep precipice
stronger than gravity

(Turn your head to the left, the picture makes sense)

morning light glowing cloud white
peaking over forest fringed parapet
revealing clustered bamboo stalks
dancing with dawn’s dew

Haiku #1:
crow screams through the sky
stream mumbles across steep rock
gray boulder ages

“Ryokan Retrospective”

Pampered experience
cordial greetings,
help with shoes
and slippers
mahogany floors
and revealed
beams overhead—
soaking pools
for feet, robes in rooms,
yukattas with a sash,
the clothing
option for
the evening

the sleeping space with one small table
and two chairs—windows open with sliding
white paper doors sturdied by
latticework framing; floor to ceiling
windows—wall to wall—
opening up a lush hillside and babbling
brook below, towering trees, many thick
and wrinkled, the sky peaking through
and an array of limbs and leaves, crows
cawing in the distance—a blackbird swoops
down, perching on bamboo branch.

Onsen below; slippers off,
doors open into changing room,
another door to showers,
you must bathe first:
men squatting on plastic
chairs, naked, soaping up,
rinsing off, then easing
into the hot soaking
pool, now a tiled bath tub.

The prickling sensation
of capillaries expanding,
blood racing,
heartbeat the lone noise
heard, steam swirling
off glass-skinned surface
water hugging skin
moving me into a trance

a moment, a feeling of communion
with not just nature, but the ancient
spirit of existence and God and Being.
this tub, a trapezoid of sorts, two feet
deep, a pool of contemplation.

Standing up slowly, exiting
to outside hotspring in open air,
steam curling from water
surrounded by volcanic rock—
sitting down into primordial heat
soaking, watching a sunrise
at dawn, the birds with their
joyful song, nestled in trees above,
caring for young.

Buddhist temple, high above
in distance, its swooping
triangle of roof turning
into ski slope at corners
surrounding gardens
popping brightly, beautifully
brilliant pinks and purples,
bonsai trees as backdrop.

Skinny stream behind ryokan
its murmur heard up by
the temple, where it begins,
soft enigma with simple beauty,
the coursing from left to right
careening down long stretches
hitting minor switchbacks
makes it look alive:
A snake, a dragon working
its way from mountaintop
to unexpecting city below
that slumbers in silence
unaware of what is to come.

From where I sit now, on a bench
feet sitting in the soaking pool
without water because it’s too early,
I see the city below, see wires of
civilization, connecting it to the world;
tall trees scratch the surface of the sky
and through the relief I see a future
Of my own, seeing my wife and children again,
A future
And what is to come.

Haiku #2
Spider-web glistens
Laced with morning dew and light
The wind blows gently


Breakfast was traditional, and quite tasty. Then we packed up and departed for Tokyo at 10:00 am for the last leg of our trip in Tokyo.