Our Trip to Arima and the Onsen

During Andrew's week off between jobs we went to the little mountain town of Arima, which is famous for its onsen (natural hot springs). It was quite beautiful and nice to get away from everything for a while, do some hiking and relax. As a treat we stayed in a very traditional Japanese-style hotel, which was really more like a b&b. Since it was the middle of the week and not a holiday, we were practically the only ones at the hotel. I guess in the "high season" it is packed. The whole thing is quite different from an American-style hotel, where you check in and then are pretty much left alone. We had to give our hostess the times that we wanted to eat dinner, go in the onsen, and wake up in the morning for breakfast. She first came into our room to serve us tea, later brought our dinner in with several different trips, then moved the table and made up our beds while we were in the onsen, and woke us up in the morning around 8:30 so that we would leave and go take showers and she could set the table up again for breakfast (also very traditional: rice, fish, egg, miso soup, seaweed). It's odd to be on such a schedule, but at the same time nice to have someone bringing you all your meals and setting everything up for you. Our hostess didn't speak a word of English, so thank goodness Andrew can get us by with his Japanese. I honestly don't see how a foreigner who doesn't speak Japanese could go to one of these things; it was difficult enough for Andrew to communicate with her since she spoke so fast and with a different sort of dialect. The onsen felt amazing - incredibly relaxing and detoxifying - but you don't realize how much it's going to drain you! We were both light-headed after getting out. At least we slept really well that night. The next morning we had hoped to do more hiking and ride the gondola, but it was pouring rain. We still had a wonderful time, and I am grateful for such a unique experience.