An incredible Hot Spring Resort in Hakone - and this is just one of about 25 different soaking options

Crazy Onsen Resort – Yunessun

From Gorda we puzzled as to what to do next. Krissy had found a flyer with bizarre pics of people soaking in hot spring baths laced with red wine, beer and sake next to larger than life bottles of wine, beer and sake. The resort also showed images of a futuristic modern hot spring facility and snap shots of some beautiful natural, but man made pools. Checking our map we figured out that this Onsen Super Resort was just a 10 minute bus ride away. I paid 1600 yen each for us but we were forced to split up as these onsens separate the sexes. So I marched off to the guy’s side with Peter.

Upon entry we were given a plastic swatch type watch without a face. The watch mechanism served as our entry pass and the magnetic key to a locker. The natural hot springs facilities were incredible, with two vast indoor pools at the entrance, one with a bubbling mechanism, the other with head rests allowing users to stretch out and soak. To the right was a gorgeous covered rectangular spring with a view over the other pools and the door to a sauna (which held about 20 to its right.) This rectangular pool looked out on a beautiful central pool with an 8 foot stone wall and several hot waterfalls spilling over it. The other side of this pool contained 3 little stations with a sloped beach like area where users could once again rest their heads and soak. To one side of this pool sat three incredible cedar tubs; each with a man soaking in them. All this water was crystal clear and just mildly sulphurous. Below all of this were 2 more huge rock lined pools and a pair of Cedar tubs. This made for a grand total of about 15 different soaking pools and the whole thing was just a treat for the eyes and memory. (Unfortunately Photographing a bunch of nude people at an Onsen is not exactly a welcome social custom, so the pics here were pasted from www.yunessun.com).

After 90 minutes of euphoric splendor I took a long sit down shower pouring bucketfuls of water over my head and over soaping every inch of my body. (Krissy informed me later that I had made a major social faux pas by showering after soaking. Of course I had rinsed off prior to bathing – but I didn’t do the full wash up routine before soaking).
Peter did a great job of figuring out a way home to Fuji Hakine and we arrived back at the guest house having had a terrific ending to our vacation. Two days of hectic Tokyo, two days of cultural Kyoto and a day and a half in the topsy turvy, three dimensional vacation land of Hakone. Tomorrow we faced a bus ride to Odawara, a train trip to Tokyo Station followed by a train journey to Narita Airport – several hours wait checking in and clearing customs – then a 10 hour flight to San Jose – a shuttle to our long term parking and an hour’s drive back to SF… Yeesh – makes me tired typing this.

Final Moments and Back to San Francisco

Meanwhile as I finish this journal (while watching the Yomiuri Giants face the Carp) Krissy says holy shit there’s a tarantula in our room! It turns out to be a fairly massive spider – about 4 inches across and it scares the hell out of us. Our house staff was summoned (I tried catching this thing and it was too fast moving to deal with.) The staff managed to shoo it into a fishnet and dispose of it out the window.

Regrettably, after a long day spent wandering Hakone we have taken a wee bit too long to get back out in order to find dinner in our remote corner of the region. Our only attempt to dine failed as the proprietor suggested the restaurant just a few blocks from Fuji Hakone Guest House had closed for the evening despite a sign out front suggesting they’d been treating an international clientele for the last 15 years. The nights in this region are extremely damp and foggy and we were quite well moistened by the weather by the time we reached the local Lawson’s convenience Store where we browsed for about 25 minutes struggling to come up with some sort of decent dinner out of the thousands of foreign and bizarre junk food items present. I wind up with a fulfilling dinner of 2 Sapporo draft beers, a bag of some sort of smoke flavored dried noodles and a Snickers bar. Krissy buys a bag of Japanese Cheese Doodles, a green tea that tasted like wet grass and a bunch of biscuits covered in chocolate. No spiders or skeeters kept us from sleeping though I did wake up quite early to tap thoughts into this journal.

Japan has been a fun, eye opening experience filled with beauty, challenge, fun, bewilderment and exhaustion all rolled up into one short but thick vacation. It would have been nice to be able to extend this fun in order to explore more of this amazing country as we have touched about .005 of it. But one week has stretched our expenses and it’s time to get back to the USA and get busy paying our debts.

The kindness, spirit and hospitality of Japan and its people will remain with us and I have faith that we may return here for more exploration in the future.

The last leg of our trip was in keeping with other previous international journeys in that it included many legs of transport en route to home. We woke early at Fuji Hakone and packed, which involved a few moments of stress as I had temporarily misplaced my passport and rail pass. Thankfully I managed to get a shower and soak in before the stress hit which helped to defuse my angst a bit. Then as previously explained, we grabbed the bus to Odawara Station where we had toast and some rather bland coffee. Then we hopped on the Shinkansen bound for Tokyo Station. Once off the Bullet Train we got ourselves as close to the departure track for Narita Airport as possible and grabbed a locker, stowing our stuff for a few hours. We wandered round the outskirts of the Tokyo Station (which in retrospect was not the best use of our time). We killed about an hour walking near the Emperor’s Palace, but not into it, then wandered through the Tokyo Forum, a major convention center inside a wildly modern building with exposed girders, lots of glass and flying walkways overhead. Some sort of convention of Cardiology/Heart Rhythm was in session which made for a bizarre juxtaposition. Afterwards we wondered into the Ginza district past Hermes, Chanel and other shops high brow, tony shops to the Sony Building where we took in an interesting exhibit on the Beatles 1966 concert in Tokyo. This was a fun little exhibit which included many candid photographs and the actual Nikon F camera and its accompanying lenses used to shoot the images by Shimei Asei, the only photographer authorized with a backstage press pass at this historic performance.

After the Ginza we hopped in and out of a number of first floor and basement shopping malls in order to grab some air conditioning. I had had just about enough of shopping but the cool air was relieving. We also ate a last meal at a crowded noodle shop but I fear we finally got ripped off. Notwithstanding the ridiculous expense of the trip in general, a simple meal of gyoza and a bowl of noodles cost us nearly double what I would have expected at 13,000 Yen. (That’s about $13 US dollars for noodles and dumplings in a dive.)

Finally we boarded the Narita train and the rest of our trip was spent attempting to get rid of as much Yen as possible. We spent liberally on candy, snacks, gifts and Sake. Then we headed onto passport control, and our American Airlines jet home.

Back to the future we go as departing Narita at 5:15PM only to arrive in SJ at 10AM the same day; just another odd twist to an odd week in Japan.