Yesterday was an awesome experience of just eating delicious food and soaking in the onsen so why wouldn’t we do it all over again today?! The first time we did a ryokan experience it was just for one night. We arrived later in the afternoon and it felt like we were rushed through the entire time we were there and didn’t get a chance to explore other areas of the town.
Kinosaki onsen town definitely has a slow paced feel where it’s just ryokans, onsens, and restaurants. You can definitely tell that it’s like a resort place where people from the city come here during their vacations or significant holidays in the calendar.
The nakai san knocked on our door at 8am sharp letting us know that breakfast was to be served in the room next door. Another delicious feast awaited us.
The meal consisted of spinach with ground sesame seeds, salmon and tamagoyaki, light salad with ham, miso soup with egg, rice congee with salt, tofu with mizuna simmered in dashi broth, silken tofu with fish paste and mushroom, dessert is almond tofu with roasted soybean powder and brown sugar syrup. I think the silken tofu and the almond tofu were my favorites out of the whole meal. I don’t think normal people eat all of this for breakfast every day but it definitely felt healthy with almost no fat or sugars compared to a nicer breakfast you would get back home.
We went down into the lobby to plan our day as there was a map of the recommended onsens to check out. I noticed there was a cabinet with many pictures of famous people and autographs. Most of them I didn’t recognize except for one.
Hachisuka san, the manager, was very proud of this visitor. He said that Mr. Bean came several years ago with his wife and two twin daughters. He stayed on the 2nd floor while we were on the 3rd. I guess he played a lot of golf while he was in Japan.
There are 7 main onsens that we had access to while staying in Kinosaki. Hachisuka san highly recommended we check out Onsen #1 first as it was his favorite. I will agree with him that this is now one of my favorites.
There weren’t many people using the onsen at this time so I was able to quick snap a picture. Both men and women’s sides had a waterfall towards the back. This was such a nice view and the sound of the waterfall was just so relaxing. A Japanese maple tree was growing over the waterfall so I can only imagine how nice this would look in the fall during the color change.
After the soak, I went and got a bottle of milk out of the vending machine because that’s what you do after onsen. Joanna got a ramune soda popsicle and said it was one of the best things ever after being in the steaming hot water.
We got some lunch and then headed to onsen #2 over by the train station. This one had a Greek bathhouse type feel. It was much busier than the first one, possibly because it was at the center of town? After the onsen, we hung out in the onsen lobby on the tatami mats. The feeling of being relaxed and not having anywhere to be until 5:30 for dinner was really nice. Both of us ended up falling asleep on the floor.
Eventually we made our way back to our ryokan for dinner. It wasn’t as fancy as the night before but the quality was still excellent. I know this because Joanna tends not to eat fish because it can be…well…fishy. But she ate all of it saying that it tasted so fresh. We had assorted nigiri sushi and rolls. Just look at the detail on this piece of cucumber! Pickled veggies and some fish, egg, and cucumber rolled in daikon radish, local crab simmered in dashi with veggies, tofu, and glass noodles, fried tempura sushi and tamagoyaki, fish that was kind of like catfish in a teriyaki glaze (tasted just like Cá Kho Tộ), Tajima wagyu beef simmered in miso paste, bowl of fruit.
I asked the nakai san what “fruit” was in Japanese because the word escaped me. She said フルーツ [frutsu]. I’m like no way, that feels like it’s cheating. Then she thought about it and said nono it’s what they say to foreigners but the Japanese word is くだもの [kudamono]. Gahh learning languages is so fun. I just need to get past the vacation brain when I get home and actually make it a priority to keep learning Japanese for the next time we come back.
Naturally we did another onsen soak at the ryokan’s private bath. Last night we did the outdoor bath, tonight the cave bath was open. I think eventually I’ll get bored of doing nothing all day besides soaking in hot springs and eating food but I’m not quite there yet 🙂
It looks amazing!!!!!
日本すごいですね！