Once again narrowly avoided disaster, or: Soaked with Xi and Donald

Yesterday it rained all day, as predicted, and so I had planned to go to Arashiyama in the west of Kyoto to visit the large and very diverse onsen. Fortunately, I had the glorious idea to check the live webcam of Fuji like every morning and to study the related weather forecast beforehand.

To my immense horror, I saw that on the very days I intended to go, there would be nothing but rain clouds, zero visibility for the night bus, a night there, and then the night bus back!

Fuji-san is famously moody and only shows itself sporadically; one really has to be lucky to admire it in its full splendor and size.

So, I reluctantly decided to cancel the two bus tickets I had booked months ago, which are hard to get, and my room, and started looking for another time slot in my travel plan.

But then I realized that would be foolish, as the same thing could happen again in November at any time, and I spontaneously decided: Next Monday and Tuesday the sun should shine! But rescheduling is easier said than done! Fortunately, the hostel still had a bed available, but the buses were of course fully booked. At another bus company, I finally found at least one seat for the return trip and decided to go directly to the main station, where several bus companies have a counter, to ask for leftover tickets.

Everyone was really very helpful and made great efforts to assist me, but there was really nothing they could do, so I decided to bite the bullet and take the Shinkansen early Monday morning to Fuji, which, although it steals half a day from me, at least allows me to (hopefully) see it again.

The station and the whole railway system in Japan are very confusing; the Shinkansen to Tokyo departs every 3 minutes, masses of people crowd the platforms, and I am terrified that I won't find my train on time, but I had to take that risk because I love this volcano too much to let this trip fall through.

The whole endeavor had already cost me half a day, but then I set off, still in pouring rain and without an umbrella, to the onsen Tenzan-no-Yu.

This facility is very refined and traditional; at the entrance, one is asked if one has a tattoo, as sadly, one will not be allowed in. Other onsens have become less strict in this regard, but tattoos are still often associated with organized crime and the Japanese mafia and are considered threatening.

The facility is huge. There are 13 different baths, one with naturally cloudy chloride-containing thermal water from a depth of 1200m, which is supposed to help with all kinds of ailments such as insomnia, acute back pain, stress, tension, hypermobility, and much more. One sits comfortably in a kind of rocky cave in water slightly warmer than body temperature, the small washcloth on one's head, and happily closes one's eyes while the cooler raindrops blow in from the side.

The other tubs and large bathtubs made of marble or fired ceramics, aluminum, or porcelain are filled with normal Kyoto water, all at pleasant temperatures so that one can easily relax and unwind for up to 30 minutes.

My favorite ones are the four shallow pools, as large as a single bed, which are embedded in the ground outdoors in the fresh air. Here, one stretches out (one cannot imagine how comfortable stone pillows are!) and lies about halfway up, approximately 15cm, in the warm water, while the rest is cooled from above. Strangely, one does not feel cold at all!

One of the round aluminum tubs bubbles like warm mineral water; I couldn't figure out where the bubbles came from! There is a cold pool, several large water massage pools, quiet warm water basins with benches, comfortable loungers to rest, and then the two highly interesting saunas: one is a kind of Russian-Roman steam bath with a large salt container in the middle, from which one takes fistfuls of coarse salt to massage into the body, which feels very pleasant. The salt then melts on the skin and is finally rinsed off with lukewarm water from a tub at the door using large ladles. Afterwards, one has skin like a baby.

The other sauna is huge, a kind of amphitheater, of course electrically heated; one sits on wide benches that are cushioned with a kind of foam pad and stares at the large flat-screen TV, of which there are also some over the pools, nearly cinema screen-sized.

Here, Xi and Trump constantly meet, smiling charmingly and self-satisfied, and the dreadful new Japanese prime minister performs playful little dance steps to show Donald how great she thinks he is. All of this in endless repetitions, interrupted only by reports about the black bear that broke into an elementary school in Tokyo the day before yesterday (through the glass door and fortunately at night) and tips on how to behave when encountering a bear: One should crinkle empty plastic bottles without caps!

In the sauna, a brewing ceremony is held every two hours: Two young women in full red-black uniforms with thick sauna hats on their heads spray water from a red watering can over the stones amid many bows. Then they take large red fans and wave them in three directions, first over the stove, then to the side, and then towards the audience. Afterwards, they come to each individual and fan them ten times directly, the whole twice. Then another bow and ten times “arigatogozaimasu” (thank you very much).

Unfortunately, it was still pouring on the whole way home, and I arrived soaking wet and with a very runny nose at my guesthouse, resulting in a slight fever now, and I have to stay in bed today, maybe tomorrow as well, because on Monday at 6 I have to be fit again to dash off to Fuji.

So, there will be a pause in reporting for now.