Ise

Monday, 16 May 2005

We left Keiko's aunt's house and drove "straight" (Christina and Andrew's joke for her mom's lack of paying attention during the drive, and giving vague driving directions from the back seat) to Ise. We got there in the mid-afternoon and visted their friends, the Minato's, who own a company that specializes in making good luck charms for shrines. We walked down the road with lots of cute shops, sake shops, mochi shops, and souvenir shops. Ise is known for their mochi wrapped in azuki bean paste. We watched them make the mochi and then we walked down further to the Shinto shrine, the most popular Shinto shrine in Japan.

It was a very nice walk, and there was a ceremony going on when we got to the end. We passed a place where they sold the Minato's products, good luck charms for the year of the Rooster and other significant symbols. It was a beautiful day, with the sun shining (finally!), tall green trees all around, and a river flowing under the bridge. Ise is a quiet, cute town, but I hear it is bustling during New Year's.

We stayed at a fancy timeshare hotel, and the Minato's treated us to a fancy French/Italian seven course meal in our hotel that night. We had a good time stuffing ourselves with seafood while talking with the Minato's son and daughter-in-law, Kazuya and Sachiko, a nice young couple close to our age.

Late that night, after our stomachs settled, I went with Christina's mom Keiko to the onsen on the hotel grounds. I had never been to an onsen before, and I figured since I was in Japan, and at a fancy 4 star hotel, I better go just to say I went (Besides, it was included in our room rate). It wasn't a natural hot spring, but there were different baths, a jacuzzi, foot baths over pebbles with hot and cold pools of water, a typical Japanese sit down- style shower, and a sauna room. The thing I had to get used to was walking around naked among all these Japanese women. And, when I first started out, I had grabbed the wrong towel.

You see, they give you two towels, a bath towel, and a hand towel. Well, I assumed since we were going to "bathe" I would want to take a bath towel. But, when I went to rinse off with the ladle, Keiko asked, "Where's your towel? You need the other one." Then I looked all around and noticed how everyone else was toweled. You just merely hold the length of the hand towel in front of you, and use it to scrub, cool your head or neck off in the hot tubs, but you don't really need anything to dry off. Everyone's just walking around naked from tub to tub! After I got used to that part, it was definitely a relaxing and soothing way to end the evening. Got home around midnight and had a good night's sleep!