Our next leg of the journey involved a 20 walk to the ferry pier. As usual there was lots to observe – here are a few shots from the road.
We were very early so we hung out in a waiting area in a building, and took the time to cool off and sample some of the strange drinks from the vending machine. Finally our ferry arrived. It was full of school kids.
It took about 20 minutes to get to the port where there was someone from the hotel waiting to pick us up. In this hotel there weren’t any private showers in the rooms, only a public bathing area with a hot pool. It was not a natural hot spring, but it was a large public bath with a beautiful view. The baths were segregated by gender, no private baths at this hotel. I didn’t give Erez the full rundown before he went in as in the past, there had been English signs to help explain the process. Oops, not at this one. The only thing he knew was that you wash yourself before you soak in the hot bath. I also forgot to bring our small towels that are needed in the public bath for washcloths and of course covering up if you choose to. It is a very small towel though – it doesn’t cover much of me, that’s for sure!
Us in our yukatas ready to freshen up:
I was fortunate in that I had the place to myself. (I forgot to mention when I first wrote this post that in the public bath, everyone is naked – let’s just say I don’t exactly look like everyone else – not that it matters at all to me at this point in my life) In the room was a large hot bath, a cold plunge pool and a sauna as well as a shower area. I took my time and washed, did my hair, soaked and did the cold plunge. I did not think the sauna would be wise after I overheated on the hike. Just after I went back into the locker area, another woman showed up and then a few more. – it seems I beat the busy time.
Erez had a different experience. There were several men coming and going, and the writing on the front of the hair products was mostly rubbed off, so he had to ask someone which was shampoo, conditioner and body wash. Also they pointed out the fact that he did not have his mini towel (no opportunity to cover anything) Overall, he was able to use some of his Japanese skills, and learned his way around for the next time. We had a good laugh when he came out eventually.
We had a delicious traditional dinner set and then watched the sunset from the fire escape. Beautiful!
This was my veggie tempura set:
We also did an hour of Karaoke which is always fun. The hotel had a decent selection of English tunes we could sing.
After Karaoke, we settled in to chill for the rest of the evening. Erez went out to make a couple of phone calls as he had wifi (at his dorm there is no wifi and he is almost tout of data until next month), and I ended up falling asleep before he came back.
Here is the monk statue in the courtyard in front of the hotel lit up at night:
Also, we kept seeing posters for this festival in July and we couldn’t stop giggling over it – we need to do some research but I am pretty sure it is not what we think it is, I hope something was lost in translation…
***After some research, Porno Graffiti is the name of an alternative rock/power pop group from Innoshima. They are famous for doing music for many movies including anime. Maybe this is an exhibition about them? Stay tuned. (Name came from an album by the same name by the band Extreme.)