My first onsen

Beforehand I already looked for information about getting into Japanese public hot spring bath: onsen. I joined Japanese foreign wives mailing list where mostly I got some important tips. So in spite of my embarrassment, basically I'm quite prepared.

The most embarrassing moment would be when I opened the yukata covered my naked body. The mailing list said that there're lockers to put all my stuffs so I could hide behind the door and then grab the towel to cover my front body part. It relieved me to know that so I was so shocked and panicked when I saw there were no lockers in that changing room. Only shelf with numbered baskets to put our stuffs into!! Nowhere to hide and there's nothing to cover me while opening my cloth. I was stunned for some minutes before my mother in law asking me till when would I stand there with opened mouth. Yeah well I had no choice than opening my cloth as fast as possible and covered my front important part with little brown towel from the hotel.

I felt so awkward, but I couldn't help not to look around my surrounding :p. The room was filled with naked women. Those women might have been to onsen since they were babies so being naked around was not something unusual. I was the only woman standing nervous next to the wall (to hide my butt:p) with towel covering my front body part. I've never seen such a lot naked women in my life, and truthfully my eyes couldn't just stop scanning. There were young skinny women, old women, mother with a toddler, and 2 little girls, but proudly I can say that none has better body shape then mine hehehehe (at least I think that none could beat my boobs hahaha) -oh narcist me!!

I started to get back my confidence then. Smiling naughtily, I took off the towel covering me and walked confidently beside my mother in law. Though basically I knew what to do inside the onsen from the information I gathered before, my mother in law was a big help.

So after we got naked, we went to the shower room. There I must clean my body well before entering the pool. Shampoo, rinse, and body soaps were available. There were two kinds of onsen in that hotel. The indoor and the outdoor one. I tried the outdoor one at that time. The pool was small but for me it was really beautiful. I could see the starry sky above me, the trees around me, with night animal sounds as the music. The water was really really hot, so I had to get into the pool really slowly and sometimes got out for some fresh cool air. I did enjoy my first onsen there and got relaxed. I wanted to take photo and share you the pictures, but those naked women would kick me out if I dared :p. Click here for photos from the hotel's homepage (^_^)



We stayed at Shirogane Onsen hotel at the first night and then moved to Asahikawa Paco hotel (inside Asahikawa city) at the second night. In total I went into onsen for three times during that journey. I would love to do that again sometime in the future.

Now we're back in Korea. Dirty house welcomed us yesterday. Today I had a long tiring day, cleaning up the house with squeaking-lonely-Iki. Tomorrow some leftover works are waiting, so I guess I need longer time for sharing our Asahikawa zoo, dining out, and Disneyland stories (^_-)v