Trip to Yamanashi…

A few weeks ago we took an overnight class trip. The region we traveled through was the Yamanashi Prefecture and we spent the night at an Onsen, a hot spring resort.

The trip itself was a lot of fun and it allowed the summer program students to do a little bonding and get to know each other away from our dorms or classrooms, which is doubly good for me because i don’t live in the dorms! The first stop on our trip was Odawara Castle (i’m going to have to post pictures later, I really need to clear some harddrive space!). Odawara Castle was enjoyable, albeit brief.

I think the real highlights of the trip were the views of Fuji-san, and Saiko Iyashi no Sato. This was a recreation of a traditional village that was destroyed by a natural disaster a few decades ago. We were never clear if it was some kind of massive mudslide or volcanic eruption.

The recreated village was amazing… Traditional thatched roof houses, carefully manicured gardens and waterfalls, and a number of sites for traditional crafts and artwork. I bought a small figurine and a ceramic wind chime. Both gorgeous.

Another terrific stop was the hot spring/sulfur pits. At this point in the trip im not even sure where we were, but the view from the top was amazing and, sans the smell, the area was really interesting. Local tradition calls for boiling some eggs in the sulfur pits. apparently a chemical reaction occurs turning the shells of the eggs black. Eating one of these eggs is supposed to extend your life by seven years. I bought six. Longevity is important to me and thats gotta be over an extra 1/2 century!

During the second day of the trip we visited Erinji Temple. The temple was founded in 1330 A.D. and was later rebuilt by Tokugawa Ieyasu. Within the temple entrance corridor there is a long, narrow, wooden hallway. As you walk on it a sound is made that is reminiscent of singing. This was created as a security alarm for intruders within the temple, as they were often sought out as places of sanctuary. As a side note I wonder if this was the inspiration for part of the book ‘Across the nightingale floor’…. well its just a thought.

The Onsen itself was amazing. We all slept in rooms with about 4-6 other people on tatami mats and futons. The experience of bathing in a traditional hot spring, or even in just the traditional Japanese style is one the i enjoy immensely. To begin with you take your shoes off and enter the changing area (this is a communal bath. It was separated by sex, but some of them aren’t). you remove your clothing and step into the bathing or shower area. Usually there are a number of stools that you sit down on with water faucets, towels, and soaps. The idea is to scrub yourself down and get clean before you set foot in the water. If you’re really thinking ahead you can also use this time to douse yourself with increasingly hotter and hotter water from the shower head to prepare yourself for the bath if it requires it. At this point you rinse down, slide yourself into the bath, maybe leave a hand towel sitting on your head to use to mop up the sweat or cover yourself up when you move around, and just soak in the pools. It sounds simple enough (it is), but there is something so cathartic and relaxing to be found in the ritual of bathing.

As always, here is a video of some of the trip. Hope you all are doing well!

~ by tokyocityblues on July 20, 2008.