Onsen overload

Day 6

I got up early as I wanted to try the hotel's rooftop bath with view before check-out. Again, there were lots of sitting showers (all with a mirror, I wonder if it is to see the outdoor's reflection on it whilst washing), 2 standing showers, 1 hot bath and 1 cold bath. I managed to dip into the hot bath with difficulty. The entire baths are made of polished stone and have huge windows with views of the surrounding woods. Sakurajima couldn't be seen as it continues to be clouded but at least I could see the nearby pine trees and cherry trees.

I was getting really hot so decided to cool down in the cold bath. As I was doing so I realised there was a door in front of it for a sauna. Let's give it a try I thought. All the seats were covered with yellow towels and there was a clock so you can keep track of time. Instead of the  length of time between 1 and 2 equate to 5 min, it was actually just a minute. I assume they don't want anyone in there for more than 12min!

The sauna was dry and hot but probably not as hot as te thermostat sugested: 89 Celsius!! A bit too much?

Ten minutes was more than enough and the cold bath afterwards felt great.

There was only one lady coming in whilst I was there and she was quicker than me. Hot bath for a few minutes, shower and gone she was. Early in the morning is clearly too early for socializing.

I left the hotel with an headache that persisted throughout the morning and only ceased with caffeine and paracetamol tablets. We think I might have stayed in the onsen a bit too much and the heat combined with the sulphur smell can be a bit too much to cope with. Clearly, you can have an onsen overload!

First stop of the day was Mount Aso, it's enormous caldera was formed when the volcano collapsed around 80,000 years ago. The caldera has a circumference of 120km and it is among the largest in the world.

Vulcanic activity is continuous with emitions of gases and some ash, having increased since 2014 hence the crater's viewing platform is off limits. We ended up in the museum, trying to decode the pictures, tables and graphics as apart from some labels in english, everything else was in japanese. The highlight was a movie about Mount Aso through the seasons which had english subtitles and beautifull pictures.

Kurokawa Onsen was tonight's stop. A small onsen village by the river Tanoharu which is well preserved and caters almost exclusively to onsen tourists (like us!).

We stayed in a ryokan (traditional japanese house) which is absolutely superb! The receptionists were extremely helpful wanting to carry all our bags at once, one of them took us around to our bedroom and tried her best to speak english and our room is fantastic. We have a bigger room than in Kirishima (10 tatami as oposed to 8 tatami in Kirishima) and it has river view. Being on the first floor it means we can hear the river even with the windows closed! There are low fitted cabinets by the windows which make for good window seats to observe the river, the trees and hear the river and wind in the trees. Absolutely lovely! The yukatas provided are better than the ones before and we were even given typical japanese socks with the first toe separated from the others so you can wear them with the tradittional slipers. We are speachless!

For anyone that doesn't know, tatami is the straw mat that constitutes the typical japanese house floor and one of the reasons japanese don't wear shoes indoors. Shoes damage tatami. This mat has set dimensions and how many you have on your room determines the size of the room. On the previous accomodation we had a 8 tatami room and it was just enough for 3 people, 10 tatami will surely be better.

View from the bedroom window:

After checking-in we walked around the village, checking out the many ryokans (all have a private onsen, many by the river) and also the many bathers in their yukatas coming and going from different onsens. In Kurokawa it is very popular to do onsen hopping and there is even a specific day pass that gives access to up to 3 ryokans (onsen passport).

The original idea was to try our ryokan's onsen and also another ryokan that is alleged to have cave baths and an outdoor pool with views of the river. Unfortunately, we couldn't find the ryokan in the map and has dinner time was getting close, we decided to have bath at ours and forget about the others.

Our ryokan's onsen is on the ground-floor. There are two parts gender segregated but they swap everyday so you can experience both. All they do is to swap the curtains at the entrance that say Man or Women. Good idea!

The Women's was the left hand side today. It is all made of unpolished rock so it has a very cave like feel. There is a changing area, an indoor area with 2 hot baths (one hotter than the other) and an outdoor area with 1 small hot bath and 1 large hot bath with a small waterfall through which the hot water is fed to the bath and it has a stone turtle near the water. I'm calling the turtle the onsen's mascote. 

The seating showers were facing the window so you could see the trees outside. 

The outdoor large pool seems to be my favourite. You can seat on the bottom, resting your small towel on the head, watching the water vapour being blown away by the wind and hearing the water splah down. This water doesn't smell of sulphur, it is transparent as well but staines the rocks red demonstrating it's high content in iron. The baths are surrounded by rock and high wooden fences.

A group of japanese went into the water after me and was very prudish. The depth of the bath was about thigh high and as you walk in it you are completely exposed. This obviously wasn't acceptable to them as they croutched in the water to walk and some did an awkward crab-like walking. Quite hilarious! As they came out of the bath,the small towel was used to cover their private bits. I am not as bothered with that!

Pictures of the ryokan's onsen here: http://www.kurokawaso.com/english/english.html

Dinner was started even before 7pm and it was a kaiseki dinner. This is a traditional japanese dinner with several courses. We had the menu in japanese but couldn't understand anything! Each course has a small amount of food but by the end of it you get really full! The food was amazingly delicious and the waitress that waited on us was so lovely we want to take her home!!

There were more dishes than the ones pictured below!

By the end of dinner I could barely move. I was so full I felt like a wale! We needed a post-dinner walk and I was very keen in joining the other yukata-wearing bathers in the pretty streets of this old village. So we went out fully dressed for the purpose.

We soon found out that the walking around is done mainly during the day. There were only 3 stooges walking around the deserted streets and that was us!