Hi Family and friends. We are safe in Japan and having a blast. Our host, Andromeda, has lost her internet connection, so our blogging will be a little more difficult and inconsistant to start. I am posting 2 entries now from a small hotel in Nikko Japan with a hot spring on-sen (bath) at 6am.
The first day of our journey was as the title says...pure bliss. We left our home in NYC at 11am and arrived to the JAL airline at JFK and spent an hour in the business class lounge sipping coctails and reading. Among the assorted persons waiting along with us was Matt Dilon, who gave Sue such a great thrill. I thought it was his brother Kevin Dilon, currently in the HBO show Entourage and was going to say something witty about his character, but Sue thankfully corrected me.
We departed close to on time and were treated to amazing service from various flight attendants who were "in charge" of us. We had champagne, sake, wine, a 3 course meal each, and food whenever we wanted during the flight. I sampled a sushi roll, udon noodles, and bean curry dishes along the way.
Our seats fully reclined and Sue took great advantage of that as she took a nice 4-5 hour rest while falling asleep watching the movie "21". I took in a couple more movies and got about a 2 hour sleep.
We landed in Japan around 4pm on August 5th. After securing our JR Passes and having our fisrt vending machine experience in Japan (you can get almost anything in a vending machine apparently) we took a bus from Narita to a hotel near Andromeda's apartment and then a short cab ride to her place "e-villagey". We expected it to be empty but were surprised to hear a male's voice when we opened the door and were met by Aiden (a young man she had met a few days earlier and has been shacking up for a few days). We talked for a while with him and then Andromeda arrived and we took about a 5 minute walk to our first On-sen experience.
Upon entering the on-sen took off our shoes and put them in a locker, then we got a bag with a towel and a robe, go to the locker rooms to change and proceed towards the on-sen pools. You can go immediately to the naked single sex pools connected to the locker rooms where they have calogen tubs, tubs with tea leaves, and tubs with other oils and scents, or continue to the coed tubs where you where a suit. We went to those on the first night and were outside under the Tokyo evening sky while sitting in warm pools. Andromeda, Sue, Aiden, and I sampled all the diffierent pools in the on-sen, my favorite being the salt water pool. There was a terrace of pools that were connected together and the hottest being at the top and the next 2 levels each a little cooler than the one above. We also sat in the sauna for a bit which had a television and Japanese drama being shown. Andromeda translated some of it for us, but we had more fun making up our own dialogue for the show.
Unfortunately we couldn't take pictures in the on-sen, but we were sooooo relaxed afterwards. We ate a little food (I was still stuffed) and took sticky pics in the game room area of the on-sen. Tons of arcade games in this separate space and various booths to take pictures that are then printed into stickers which you can decorate before priting. We had so much fun doing this that I think we will be having several more sticky pic and on-sen sessions.
We left the on-sen a little after midnight and headed back to Andromeda's. Our intent was to rise at 4am the next day, have some breakfast and head over to the world's largest fish market before taking a train up to Nikko, the hot springs town north of Tokyo with lots of temples and a national park.
We ended up turning to bed around 2am and scrapped the fish market for another day to get at least another hour of sleep. There was never a travel day so blissful
The first day of our journey was as the title says...pure bliss. We left our home in NYC at 11am and arrived to the JAL airline at JFK and spent an hour in the business class lounge sipping coctails and reading. Among the assorted persons waiting along with us was Matt Dilon, who gave Sue such a great thrill. I thought it was his brother Kevin Dilon, currently in the HBO show Entourage and was going to say something witty about his character, but Sue thankfully corrected me.
We departed close to on time and were treated to amazing service from various flight attendants who were "in charge" of us. We had champagne, sake, wine, a 3 course meal each, and food whenever we wanted during the flight. I sampled a sushi roll, udon noodles, and bean curry dishes along the way.
Our seats fully reclined and Sue took great advantage of that as she took a nice 4-5 hour rest while falling asleep watching the movie "21". I took in a couple more movies and got about a 2 hour sleep.
We landed in Japan around 4pm on August 5th. After securing our JR Passes and having our fisrt vending machine experience in Japan (you can get almost anything in a vending machine apparently) we took a bus from Narita to a hotel near Andromeda's apartment and then a short cab ride to her place "e-villagey". We expected it to be empty but were surprised to hear a male's voice when we opened the door and were met by Aiden (a young man she had met a few days earlier and has been shacking up for a few days). We talked for a while with him and then Andromeda arrived and we took about a 5 minute walk to our first On-sen experience.
Upon entering the on-sen took off our shoes and put them in a locker, then we got a bag with a towel and a robe, go to the locker rooms to change and proceed towards the on-sen pools. You can go immediately to the naked single sex pools connected to the locker rooms where they have calogen tubs, tubs with tea leaves, and tubs with other oils and scents, or continue to the coed tubs where you where a suit. We went to those on the first night and were outside under the Tokyo evening sky while sitting in warm pools. Andromeda, Sue, Aiden, and I sampled all the diffierent pools in the on-sen, my favorite being the salt water pool. There was a terrace of pools that were connected together and the hottest being at the top and the next 2 levels each a little cooler than the one above. We also sat in the sauna for a bit which had a television and Japanese drama being shown. Andromeda translated some of it for us, but we had more fun making up our own dialogue for the show.
Unfortunately we couldn't take pictures in the on-sen, but we were sooooo relaxed afterwards. We ate a little food (I was still stuffed) and took sticky pics in the game room area of the on-sen. Tons of arcade games in this separate space and various booths to take pictures that are then printed into stickers which you can decorate before priting. We had so much fun doing this that I think we will be having several more sticky pic and on-sen sessions.
We left the on-sen a little after midnight and headed back to Andromeda's. Our intent was to rise at 4am the next day, have some breakfast and head over to the world's largest fish market before taking a train up to Nikko, the hot springs town north of Tokyo with lots of temples and a national park.
We ended up turning to bed around 2am and scrapped the fish market for another day to get at least another hour of sleep. There was never a travel day so blissful
New word/phrase for the day
daitashi mashite: You're welcome.
New queen word/phrase for the day
so desne: That's so cool.
2 comments:
Another word you need:
sugoi = "awesome," especially when you draw it out, like suuuuuuu-goeee!
The first syllable is "Sue," so it'll be easy!
Thanks for the tip!!! xo
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