Christmas Day Relaxation

We went to Kurokawa Onsen, which is a tiny but very famous onsen town in Kyushu. We had to drive a car here because it was in the middle of nowhere. I actually wasn't sure if we were in the right place because there really was nothing there but mountains and forest.
I decided that for Christmas we needed to do something really nice so we didn't feel homesick. We got a room with a private onsen bath. It was really nice and made out of stone and we could open the huge windows and look out at the spring and forest outside. Water was constantly flowing into the bath. This bath was connected to our room.

Here we are putting on our yukatas. At this kind of resorts, people walk around in these. Inside and outside the hotel.

Dinner! Well, they prepared me a special seafood and veggie only meal. So I had some barely thing, shrimp, pickled plum, tofu, and lots more stuff. I had a big thing of soup too.
Markian's meal is below. I guess it's standardly what they serve since he didn't make any special meal requests. See the raw looking meat closest to the camera? Can you guess what that is? Well, the lady brought the food too our room at dinner time and she didn't speak any English except for "That's raw horse meat." haha I had a feeling this would happen. I found out right before our trip that Kumamoto (which is very close to Kurokawa Onsen) is famous for raw horse meat served with fresh ginger root. Of course we'd paid a lot for this room and dinner and the poor horse was already dead, so Markian ate it. He said it just tasted like ginger. He wished the lady hadn't told him what it was though.


Above: A close up of my fish. Yes, that is his eyeball. I ate the fish, but not the head. Markian finally put on his yukata, below. He's always shy to put it on and then sees everyone else wearing them and finally wears it then.

Me at night walking between the baths. So we had a private one that you saw earlier in our room. You could also reserve private family baths. So we did a few to check them out, but none were as nice as the one in the room. Below is the outdoor family bath. Actually funny story here.
So it was extra hot in that water. I couldn't take it for long. We're sitting there and all of a sudden Markian gets this look on his face. He claimed nothing was wrong, but got really quite. He didn't tell me what happened when we got out. Apparently a huge cockroach (we were outside) had crawled up onto the spot right next to me while I was in the bath. He didn't say anything because I would have ran out of the bath and probably fainted because of the change in temperature from the hot bath to the cold winter air that quickly. I was grossed out, but glad he didn't say anything. We refer to this bath at the gokiburi onsen. Gokiburi means cockroach.


Above is the mixed sex public bath. There was no one in it, so Markian ran in and took a picture for me. I did manage to get in a public bath this time. I went in the women's only rotemburo (open air bath). No one was in there, so I guess it really doesn't count. Someone came in and I ran out really fast and almost feel on my ass. Scary. I went back to my private bath.
Above: The family cedar bath that can be used privately.
Breakfast! Yeah, I couldn't stomach most of it. I can't stomach breakfast anyway. I can't eat early...ugh. I ate the pickles and the seaweed and the rice, but wasn't up for the hormone (fish ovaries or something like that). Breakfast was served in a communal dining hall.

We took some final pictures before we left. This place was so beautiful and so away from in all in a good way. I wish we could have stayed another night, but places like this don't come cheap and we had plans to go many other places on our winter holiday.

Above: Markian in front of the hotel.
Below: Parts of our room. Yes, it was crazy huge. It was the nicest place I've ever stayed in my life, and probably will ever stay in. I so want to go back here!


The view from on of the windows in our room.


Above: The hotel lobby.


Above: A foot bath.
Below: Corn...don't know why...but yeah corn...


Above: Moss. Oh how I love moss.
Below: Just to show you how narrow the road is. This is when we were leaving the area. What a strange, but wonderful Christmas! We spend it the Japanese way, which is the romantic way. Christmas here is about romance, while New Years is about family.