Luxurious Onsen Hotel In The Mountains
Our muscles are aching from the climb and descent of Fujisan two days ago. We treated ourselves to a luxurious onsen hotel in the mountains, to soak in the hot spring for hours if we wanted.
She floated through the ceiling
Due to the heavy rain that day, many train and bus services had been cancelled. The risk of landslide was real and when the hotel minibus came to pick us up, we were all on the edge of our seats as we wound around the tight roads that closely hugged the side of the mountain and at times were wide enough only for one vehicle.
At the hotel, we are greeted by the most lovely woman. She checks us in and takes us to the elevator. With the six of us and all of our bags, we barely fit into the lift, so the woman sends us up on our own.
Just as the doors open on our level, the woman is already there waiting for us! It’s as if she floated through the ceiling – this would be our first ghostly encounter in the land of the rising sun. Hahaha
The room was very well-appointed, an entire apartment at our disposal. In the Japanese style, we would be sleeping on mats laid out on the floor.
Dinner was an amazing spread of Japanese delights.
We had cup noodles as soon as the kettle had boiled and then set off to enjoy a bit of onsen time. We donned our yukata provided by the hotel and we were on our way. The onsen was outdoor, with a lovely view up the mountain and a slight pitter patter of rain.
The lovely woman called us in for dinner, and in the apartment we thought to clean up our mess afterwards.
Dinner was an amazing spread of Japanese delights. Here’s a few pics of the food that had been laid out.
Every five or so minutes, the woman brought out a new dish. I was eating quickly as I was starving, and kept up with the pace of the food being brought out. Stuffed is one way to describe us after the meal service.
When we came back to the apartment, the whole room had been tidied up – all mats and beds prepared for us, ready for sleeping. This was the second ghostly encounter – we surmised that the woman was cleaning our room in between the dishes she brought out during dinner. Hahaha
April and I stayed up late, while the others slept. We put on a facial, with kabuki faces printed on them – because of my beard, the mask didn’t stick well, but April’s looked really cool.
There was a games room which also had two massage chairs (free to use!). We sat there for ages being massaged by the mechanical chair.
Around midnight we thought it would be cool to go onsen – in the black of the night, it was actually pretty cool (hot!) to have a bath. The men and women’s onsens are separated (of course) but they are swapped over once a night, so we got to try out both sides!
