Hi! I’m back with another post, and this one will be about what I did during Golden Week, which was actually fairly long ago, haha.
Golden Week is a (usually) week long Japanese holiday. However, this year it was actually 10 days as additional days were added for the sake of the new emperor ascending the throne. Almost everyone has the period off of school or work. The period has multiple national holidays, such as various past emperor’s birthdays and Children’s day. And fun fact, it actually starts on my birthday (April 29th)!
My host family graciously took me on a 3-day, 2-night trip to the Mie prefecture. The trip was to celebrate my host mom’s mom turning 77, a lucky age. The group was me, my host family, and 10 other of their family members. Mie is in the Kansai region of Japan and south of Tokyo. It’s a 3 hour trip from Tokyo by Shinkansen. Mie is most famous as the site of Ise Shrine, the shrine of the sun goddess Amaterasu and the most holy shrine in Japan. It is a coastal region and there are many tiny islands in the area as well.
I had never even heard of Mie, as it does tend to be more popular among Japanese natives than tourists, but I was very excited to go. We boarded the Shinkansen in the morning and rode it for 2 hours to the city of Nagoya.
We passed Mount Fuji while riding the shinkansen, and, as usual, the top was obscured by clouds, but it was still beautiful!
Once we got to Nagoya we went to an unagi (freshwater eel) restaurant. While it may sound weird, unagi is actually quite delicious. In my opinion it tastes a bit like really soft chicken. I also tried unagi kimo (liver) which was… interesting.
My meal of unagi!
After that we went to Nagoya castle. Unfortunately most castles in Japan are reconstructions, mainly due to major damage sustained from bombing during World War II, and Nagoya castle is no exception. However, it was still really cool to see it!
All of us in front of Nagoya Castle.
We got back on a train and rode the rest of the way to Mie, specifically the area of Shima. Shima is a much more rural area on the coast, surrounded by many tiny islands. We stayed in a ryokan, a traditional Japanese inn. It was my first time staying in a ryokan, and it was super fun! All the rooms have tatami mats and you sleep on futons. Most ryokans also have an onsen (hot spring shared bath).
I’m not going to lie, I was nervous about the onsen because, well, everyone is naked. It’s separated by gender of course, but I was worried people would stare at me because I’m a foreigner and in this part of the country there are very few foreigners. Also, the idea of getting naked with your host family doesn’t sound particularly appealing, at least not to me!
We first changed into yukata, a light summer kimono, and then headed down. The ryokan provides you with towels and small plastic bags to carry your keys down to the bath. Once you get to the onsen, you put your shoes in a small locker and then go to a larger locker to store your yukata and personal belongings in. Then you go to an area with many showers and shower as per usual. The showers are almost never separated by any barriers.
My host sister, her cousin, and me in yukata at the ryokan
Once you’re clean, you get into the bath of your choice. Depending on the place, there may be one or multiple kinds of baths. At this ryokan, there was an indoor bath and an outdoor bath (also called a rotenburo). The outdoor bath was beautiful. It overlooked the ocean and it was so nice to feel the cool air while soaking in the warm water.
And surprisingly, it was a lot less weird than I thought it’d be! There’s something kind of empowering about being in a room full of naked women not giving a damn about being naked. Very few of the women seemed self-conscious and there were people of all shapes and sizes. It almost felt natural to just be naked. I loved it! I highly recommend the experience.