21/04/2016
After Sendai, we made our way to Kaminoyama—a small hot spring town in Yamagata. Out of all the places we visited in Japan, this was one of my favourites. I had managed to book 2 nights at a traditional style onsen ryokan (basically a Japanese spa hotel) via japanican.com.
The hotel was practically empty upon our arrival and more or less stayed that way. I felt like I was in a Haruki Murakami novel—spooky in a pleasant way. Our room was absolutely huge. There was a small entrance hall for our shoes, with a bathroom on one side, toilet on the other. Straight ahead was a large tatami room with paper sliding doors separating it into sections. The main largest section had a low lacquer table and chairs; the next largest section was presumably where we would sleep, aside a cupboard full of yukata; and the last smallest section had a western height table and chairs.
I found the cupboard full of futons, but there were no sheets. I had a feeling someone would come to lay our futons out but Jason wanted lie down now, so we piled 2 layers of futon mattresses, and 3 duvets each. We were relieved to find the pillows were only half bean pillow with padding on one side. In Japan pillows full of buckwheat grains seem to be very popular. They are fine if you sleep on your back but hideously uncomfortable in any other position. As I expected a man did show up at our door that evening, intending to lay out our futon. I tried to just get some sheets off him but I wasn’t able to communicate effectively so I ended up letting him in, much to my embarrassment. He was most confused by our futon arrangement, and the room was alive with self-conscious giggles. I watched with some fascination as he repositioned the mattresses, expertly covered them with 2 flat sheets, and then linked 4 single duvets by some folding technique while wrapping the top ends in another small sheet. The futons completely filled that tatami sliding-door room and, lying down on that bed, I knew I had found the ultimate triple duvet heaven (we added a third layer of duvet after futon man left).
The onsen was on the seventh floor, with an incredible view of the town and the snow-capped mountains beyond. They were gender separated so Jason and I weren’t able to bathe together, but this did mean that we got the opportunity to bathe naked with middle and old aged Japanese people. I didn’t realised until the second day, after watching the ladies bathe, how it’s done. The room is lined with showers, taps, little wooden stools and buckets. You are meant to shower first, and then soak in the hot bath. This involves squatting on one of the stools and using a combination of shower, bucket drenches, soap and shampoo to get yourself sufficiently clean. Make sure to rinse the area down before you leave and make a gesture of covering your modesty with small wet towel. Then there was a choice between vast extremely hot bath, small cold plunge pool, and steamy outdoors scenic bath with tiny burning waterfall.
As I was getting dressed back into my yukata, 2 Japanese ladies with whom I had exchanged smiles in the bath earlier saw how I had tied it (incorrectly of course) and proceeded to redress me. They swapped me one of their yukata for mine (they all belong to the hotel anyway), wrapped the right hand side under the left (I later learned that right side over left is how they dress the dead in Japan), tied everything together tightly with a thin hoshikimo belt, and then wrapped my waist in an obi, knotted at the back in the shape of a bow! We were all thoroughly enjoying ourselves and getting rather carried away. Unfortunately I had already texted Jason to say I was ready, and so he was outside waiting for me (I had the room key) for 15 minutes while the ladies fussed over me. This meant that our exit from the changing room was met with a very angry Jason, much embarrassment and badly stifled tears on my part.
Later that evening I knocked on their door. I wanted to apologise for the awkward situation that had arisen. Mieko and Midori (as I later learned their names) invited me into their room for tea, walnut flavour mochi and some Japanese conversation (they spoke little English). They apologised profusely and said how they had worried, asking many times if Jason and I were okay. I learned they were friends from high school (now in their 60s), living in Sendai and Yamagata, and were just in Kaminoyama for the weekend. Midori folded some origami warrior hats and gave them to me. They might be the kindest most wonderful ladies I have ever had the pleasure of meeting. In the end I wrote them a postcard (in hiragana—it took me forever) including my email address and some Early Grey tea as a gesture for everything they gave me. The next morning just before we left, they came to say goodbye and handed me an envelope with their email addresses. They said for me to think of them as my Japanese mothers! I was so happy I could have died. Since then I have exchanged a couple emails with Mieko. Midori’s email was misspelled so I have yet to email her.
