Another Yarn     Part 2

When everthing is getting a bit too much, when you suffering from cultural overload, when you feel like you can't communicate, when you start focussing only on the negative aspects of Japanese life, WHAT DO YOU DO ?

You get away from it all, that's what you do. One thing I love about the Japanese is that when they eventually do relax for a while, they really do it well.

There is a hot spring resort called Unzen about 60 km from here. It's perched on the slopes of an active volcano. It's a really beautiful place. That's where we head for.

Dogs safely checked in to the dog hotel, we head off taking the scenic coast road. We are playing a CD of Irish Pipe music that came with that Starlistings package. Irish Muzak - it really is awful. But I like it. As we drive along the coast, the land becomes hilly. The flat areas of the valleys are taken up with rice farms and small towns. Fruit and veg farms are terrraced into the hills. The steepest parts of the hills are covered in lush green forest. Volcanic soil you see.

As we drive into Unzen I sing along to the Muzak..
In Dublin's fair city
Where the girls are so pretty...

We get to the Ryokan (Japanese Inn), but are too early to check in so we go for a stroll around town. We go and look at the Jigoku (hells). These are the pools of boiling water which dot the landscape. Not for bathing in, the water is too hot. Steam vents are everywhere. Steam pouring out from under rocks, from cracks and holes in the ground. The steam contains Hydrogen Sulphide. The air has a heavy smell of sulphur.

Unzen was founded in 701 AD by a Buddhist monk. 1300 years of hot spring bathing has been going on here so it must be good. Back in the 17th century the Shogun's soldiers used to throw Catholic converts into the really hot springs and watch them boil alive. These days lapsed Catholics like me go there for relaxation and therapeutic skin care. Unzen was Japan's first National Park.

One of the Jigoku is called the eighty thousand hells. Buddhists believe that there are eighty four thousand possible permutations of bad sinful naughtiness in a person's brain. An evil man must go through eighty four thousand hells before he can reach heaven.

Back at the Ryokan, we check in and the Okami shows us to our room. An entrance lobby, sliding doors to a tatami room. No bed, futons will be rolled out later. Another set of sliding doors to an enclosed balcony. We head straight for the in house baths. Wash, bathe, relax. Wonderful. Back in our room, we start...well we start doing what couples do when in a resort hotel. Suddenly there is a knock at the door.

An okami is very unique. They are able to knock on a door, open it, walk in, slip off their slippers and slide open the door to the tatami room all in one swift motion and while wearing a kimono and carrying a tray of tea. Okami also do not know the meaning of the word privacy. She closed the sliding door and said "Gomen Nasai", but she didn't go away. She had come to serve us tea and by god she was going to serve us our damned tea. We quickly make ourselves decent. The yukata is a very handy item of clothing at such times. The okami comes in and serves us tea. Every time she looks at me she giggles. I sit cross legged and stare at the tatami saying "domo arigato gozaimasu" which makes her giggle even more.

We have our tea and she goes away, but the moment has been ruined. We head for the baths again. I go to the cold water bath. Ostensibly, the cold water bath is for cooling down after the sauna, but I have discovered a new purpose for it - cooling down after falling victim to 'Okami Interruptus'.

I try the outdoor bath. A short stroll along a fenced walkway and you find the bath set amid a Japanese garden and almost completely surrounded by the dense forest that the hotel backs onto. You can almost imagine that you are alone in a forest bathing naked in a hot pool. Aaaah, lovely. Watch out for those Japanese wasps. I do not want to get stung on a part of my body that normally doesn't see direct sunlight. These wasps remind me of the monsters from those 1950's Japanese movies. They are big and scary looking but somehow they don't seem quite real.

Patrick Quinlan
May 2005