Blog #8: Japanese hot baths, ryokan, and gassho-zukuri
Although Japan had to adapt to the western world following its forced opening to the outside world when U.S. Commodore Perry’s fleet sailed into the bay at Tokyo (then called Edo) in 1853, it has retained quintessential cultural features that outsiders are often permitted to experience. Onsen (traditional Japanese hot springs), ryokan (traditional Japanese inns), as well as visiting and even lodging in gassho-zukuri (thatch-roofed wooden buildings in the Shiragawa-go region) are some of these cultural touchstones.
Onsen in Nikko late at night after other bathers have departed.
Onsen. Japan has multiple interesting cultural experiences, many of which are available to gaijin (non-Japanese). One cultural ritual I have enjoyed on many occasions entails onsen. Onsen are hot springs (often really hot) that are typically set up as hot baths usually shared by several people. Perched on the ring of fire surrounding the Pacific Ocean, Japan has more than a thousand onsen to go along with its volcanos and earthquakes. I have been taken to the best onsen of my experience by Japanese friends, Ei-ichiro and Chojiro, who also educated me on proper etiquette. A key element of etiquette is to forego picture-taking, especially while other people are around (actually nobody had to tell me this), which must be extremely restrictive to the Japanese who otherwise take pictures all the time – this is my pardon in advance for the limited onsen pictures here.
Tsuboyu Onsen, a World Heritage Site, is part of the 1800-yr-old Yunomine onsen. This historic wooden cabin can be rented for privacy.
Typically, you go to the hot bath at night after going to your room, where you will be sleeping and possibly eating, and changing into your cotton yukata (robe) and tanzen (short jacket), if the weather is cool. The yukata is worn in a prescribed manner (left over right side) and tied at the waist with a cotton belt. These are typically worn throughout the establishment and even outside your place of lodging in the evening. Outside your room, you walk in slippers provided to you, which are not worn in the room, the toilet (which has its own slippers), the bath area, nor outside the building.
Onsen these days are usually separated by gender but sometimes with a pretty minimal fence. However, in some places, there are baths that can be used by families or couples. You are issued a towel, similar but smaller than a kitchen dish towel, to be used for washing, drying and being discreet while moving outside the hot bath. Second, one washes thoroughly in a communal room with provided soap, shampoo and washing bowl, while sitting on a 6-inch-high stool, prior to entering the hot bath – no dirty people or soap in the bath that will be used by multiple people.
More upscale baths, such as I enjoyed in Nikko, Yoshino, Toba, Ryujin Onsen, and Katsuura Onsen (Youhou and Bokido Cave, in particular), are typically located outside in a place of natural beauty, often along a river or seafront, and are often heated naturally by geothermal vents. Most impressive for me was a sunrise soak in the stone onsen inside Bokido Cave watching the sun rise in the east as big waves crashed against the rocks and sometimes splashed me as I was vegetating in the bath. I have no physical pictures of that experience as I was not alone, but I include here a picture of a private onsen in Ryujin that my wife and I enjoyed at sunrise as we bathed comfortably beside a stream.
Private onsen my wife and I entered just before sunrise at Ryujin Onsen.
Part of Kumano Nachi Taisha, one of the three Grand Shrines of the Kumano Kodo, probably the most important pilgrimage route in Japan. There are many onsen and ryokan to support pilgrims and hikers near the trail.
Take the turtle boat to transfer from Kii-Katsuura out to the resort with multiple onsen and eating venues. In October, 2012, my wife and I were the only gaijin I detected there. In retrospect, that is true of the other onsen listed here too.
Ryokan. Although onsen are not always associated with lodging, often they are. Staying in traditional Japanese inns (ryokan) or gassho-zukuri inns (in the Shirakawa-go area) has provided me with wonderful memories of a much different culture. I have stayed in ryokans or more modest minshuku in many places. You sleep on thin mattresses placed each evening on the tatami (rice straw) mats of your room with pillows filled with rice husks and covered with a sheet and a quilt. In some upscale places, you are served dinner on a low table In your room, which the server will prepare. That person will later arrange your room for sleeping. In other places, you go to a communal table, which is also only inches off the floor. Sitting cross-legged on a pillow on the floor is frankly pretty tough on the knees for non-Japanese, but you are always forgiven for the need to straighten your legs occasionally; please don’t point your foot at anyone though.
This is typical of dinner served in your room – here in Koyasan – with many small diverse dishes and hot tea available in an insulated pitcher. However, note that this gaijin has put her yukata on incorrectly; it should be left over right, rather than the right-over-left style of a corpse prepared for interment. And her knees have rebelled against sitting in the standard cross-legged style.
Individual breakfast service in a rural ryokan’s dining room – here in Ryujin.
Gassho-zukuri. On one visit to Japan, Chojiro took me to visit Ogimachi in the Shirakawa-go region and to Ainokura and Suganuma in the nearby Gokoyama region. This region is famous for the gassho-zukuri buildings in this beautiful area that has been designated as a World Heritage Site.
Part of Ainokura showing a mix of gassho-zukuri with other buildings, which may be also be hundreds of years old but are topped with less expensive and more durable roofs than the thatched roofs of the traditional gassho-zukuri.
A farm on the edge of Ogimachi, Shirakawa-go.
The term gassho-zukuri means praying hands and describes the steep thatch-roofed structures that have been standard for this agricultural area for centuries. The steep pitch is crucial, since winter brings much snow.
During the day, we walked inside and outside the villages, and we were able to enter some of the buildings, which are maintained as museum pieces, although the majority of buildings are occupied by families of the local farmers. The inside upper part of a gassho typically was used to cultivate silkworm cocoons. In the cold winter months, spinning and weaving silk was important.
Upper part inside.
A poster I saw in Ainokura.
Gassho-zukuri in Suganuma.
Gassho-zukuri in Ainokura
Bell tower in Ogimachi, Shirakawa-go.
We also stayed in one of the gassho-zukuri in Ogimachi that served as a minshuku. Of course, after dinner at our minshuku we went to the public onsen situated beside the river while wearing our yukatas.
The minshuku in which we stayed in Ogimachi.
A kabuki pose depicted on a truck as we drive back from Shirakawa-go to Osaka.
Places where people, pilgrims historically and tourists currently, were likely to visit important shrines, temples and castles, as well as locations of natural beauty often have associated ryokan and minshuku. So, it is easy to enjoy these culturally distinct lodging, dining and soaking amenities while visiting some of Japan’s outstanding cultural and natural sites.