Just outside of a small dilapidated town in Oregon there is a waterfall not often spoken of. The gravel road leading to the trail head is only three miles long, but strewn with enough head sized rocks that you must crawl at a pace slower than walking. Is this the reason the waterfall stays well out of the spotlight? Or could it be the short, under-a-mile trail that literally slides down the side of the ravine to the creek bed? No that’s not it either. Then it must be the ATV use area just miles from the creek which surly pollutes the sweet sounds of nature with loud metallic whines and gunshot style backfires. Nope. Then what the heck is it?

Abiqua falls is 101 feet of thundering water made even more powerful by the amphitheater of red tinged columnar basalt that surrounds the viewer. That 101 feet was also the world record for the highest waterfall run by a kayaker in 2002. Now Abiqua is just a little waterfall visited often only by local kids and the rogue hiker from Portland. It’s relative loneliness makes it all the more attractive in the often crowded trails and forest of the pacific northwest.

On a rare sunny afternoon in February I saw the photos online of Abiqua and instantly thought I could make it there before sunset. I gathered up some water, some snacks, and my camera gear tossed it in the back of my small car and motored off to find another slice of beautiful Oregon. After an hours drive I came to the yellow gate and parked my car. The air was fresh despite the nearby OHV area and the sun was running frantically for the horizon and so I set off. Another 30 minutes down a muddy slip and slide and along the bank of an almost cliche beautiful Oregon stream and I could see the walls of basalt. I could hear the rumble of the falls, No I could FEEL the rumble of the falls. I scampered of the last set of rocks and rounded the corner into the amphitheater.

No set of words, let alone my own, could serve the scene justice. The high hundred foot walls of basalt with lichen, moss, and even ferns growing in their own little micro climates. The oval shaped, perfectly sanded stones that ran out into the middle of the amphitheater serving as the ultimate spot to view the falls from. The deep blue green pool of cold water, surly most of it from the Oregon rain that could only be so pure. And of course, Abiqua Falls. All 101 feet tumbling over the edge of the basalt cliffs, spilling into that deep pool, polishing those perfect stones, and feeding the ferns the water they need to survive via mist floating through the air seeming more like microscopic fairies than water droplets.

The best part was that I had it all to myself, not a single person, not even a noise other than the falls. Another piece of my Oregon puzzle had been found. This slice tasting the best of all, yet it was no better than any other place in Oregon. I’m finding more and more that it’s how everything fits together, rather than the individual pieces that fill my heart will love for Oregon.

Saturday morning we slowly got out of bed around 9am. A late start for most hikers. My girlfriend, Tram, and I were in no rush to get to the trail. I planned to be at the waterfall later in the day so that I would be able to take a longer exposure of the water, giving it the cliche dreamlike effect.

On the way up 205 we stopped at the Clackamas REI store so Tram could grab some new hiking socks. I wandered for a bit looking at all the cool gadgets I don’t need, but desperately desire. It’s a love hate relationship I have with REI, why is it so easy to want everything in the store? After REI we made a couple more stops, one being a Vietnamese deli/sandwich shop “Best Baguette.” The sandwiches are around $3 and pretty tasty and large for the price.

After a few minutes on 205 we exited onto Washington Highway 14 and headed east. I ate my sandwich while driving and staring out the window at the beautiful views. I was particularly impressed near cape horn and pulled off to take some pictures. Once near Carson I turned onto Wind River Hwy. and headed north then about 16 miles and a couple forest roads later we arrived at the Falls Creek Falls trail head.

There was a slight mist falling in the 2nd growth forest around us, not the snow we had expected. We geared up and set out on the lower trail, which is about 1.5 miles to the waterfall. Along the way we saw patches of snow, a miniature canyon which the creek roared through, sweeping bends in the creek, and plenty of mushrooms. Every 10 feet Tram would point out another mushroom and we would inspect them. Once we arrived at the falls there was still a little too much light out so we decided to hunt for more mushrooms to take pictures of. Walking back along the trail about a half mile we constantly stopped and snapped photos of the variety of mushrooms in this forest. It’s only recently that I’ve become interested in mushrooms and I never expected to see so many on one hike. While browsing the miniature landscapes Tram pointed out a cool water droplet. I took a photo, the one above, and it turned out to be my favorite of the day.

The light had dimmed a little so we walked back to the waterfall and took some photos. I worked quickly as the spray from the falls made it “rain” more in that area. I was struggling to keep my camera dry, so I got the photo I wanted and packed up. We arrived back at the car just as night fell, took off our gear, turned on the heater and headed for home. Six miles later Tram realized she had left one of her shoes at the trail head so we drove back to get it. Finally sure that we had everything we headed home. It had been a long day and I was ready for a nice bed and some hearty food.

This is a little late as Halloween has passed, but what the heck. Last week on my daily drive from Corvallis to Salem I decided to take my girlfriend to a pumpkin patch. It’s been a while since my last visit to the large field of bright orange orbs and since my return to America I’ve wanted to do some fun local things. I saw a sign for Setniker Farms pumpkin patch and turned off the main road. The late fall light was beginning to fade so I quickly drove down a long dirt road until we came upon the farm. To our surprise the parking lot was packed.

The first thing we did was go climb the big haystack pyramid. From the top we could survey our surroundings and the whole pumpkin patch. The first of cold winds was blowing and making our noses runny. We hopped down and headed to get a pull cart. We walked out into the patch going farther and farther, looking for the perfect pumpkins. I was looking for a nice round medium size pumpkin while my girlfriend fancied a “unique” one. We constantly stopped and picked up pumpkins, turning them to see all sides, checking for rot.

It wasn’t until our way back from the far side of the patch that we finally found the perfect pumpkins. We set them side by side, making sure they complemented each other. We both agreed they looked good together, put them in our cart and went to pay. After the pumpkins had been weighed the total came to a whopping $3.50! I know for sure that Safeway would have sold the same pumpkins for $5+ each. Happy about the bargain we’d come across we drove home and started brainstorming idea’s for carving. I decided to carve an OSU pumpkin, which didn’t come out very good, and my girlfriend carved a face which worked really good with her unique pumpkin. The escapade was not yet over!

With all those leftover guts and seeds we had to do something. The guts ended up in the compost, but the seeds ended up in the oven. We had enough for three batches of seeds so we spiced each one differently. There’s nothing I love more than being efficient and using all the resources that I have. Well maybe cheap/free food.

It was just after 1am on the C-1 expressway loop in Tokyo. Not many cars were on the road, mostly delivery trucks and a few passenger cars. Suddenly the car dropped a gear and the driver floored the accelerator. The turbo in the skyline spooled up, making a high pitch hissing noise. Then after reaching 200 km/h the driver lifted off the accelerator, the blow off valve screeched, and we slowly decelerated to a normal highway speed. This process would continue for most of the night, and while it was fun the first couple times, after several hours it was boring and testing my nerves.

Aoyama Gakuin has a car club in which they work on race cars that the school owns, basic Honda Integra’s and Civic’s, and the club members work on their own cars. My friend Sean, from back at Oregon State, is a big car nut and so when he found out there was a car club, he joined. I didn’t really want to spend the extra time going out to the other campus so I never went to the garage. Early in the year Sean told me that some of the club members were going to go to a car meet and I asked if I could come along. The guys were all cool with it, but the meet ended up being cancelled because of rain. Finally a few weeks later, Sean told me that there was going to be a big RX-7 meet at Daikoku, a famous car meet spot in Yokohama. We agreed to meet up later after school and head out to the car club’s garage.

Once at the garage, we hung out for a bit as one of the girls had to work on her Nissan Skyline. I’m not exactly sure what model and what they were doing, but it took them a while. I don’t recall what time we left, but it wasn’t that late by American standards for a night car meet. As we were on the expressway to Daikoku we pulled over and all the car club guys began talking to each other. It took us a couple minutes, but Sean and I finally figured out that the cops had come to the meet and broken it up. Sure enough RX-7’s a plenty were passing us by on the opposite side of the freeway. We even saw some of the cars from D1 drifting going by on trailers. Disappointed that we missed the main event we had to figure out what to do next.

One of the club members found out that some of the people from the meet might head out to Ebina, a large parking and service area off of one of the expressways. We all hopped back in the cars and headed that way. We arrived to about eight different generation Rx-7’s, but all white. The drivers weren’t in the cars and so we waited. The drivers came out and talked a little bit, popped their hoods, and then took off. After grabbing a bite to eat at the food area we were about to leave too. Then someone realized that one of the other club members had the key to the garage, where Sean and I would sleep because of our curfew at the dorm, and no one had a spare. The night could have been fairly short and easy, but this is where things got bad.

First everyone stood around in a circle and said “dou shio?” meaning “what should we do?” The key wasn’t our only problem. For some reason more of the club members had stayed than we had seats for in the cars, so now it was a game of trying to ask some random RX-8 owner to take some of the other kids with him. I know this is the Japanese way of doing things and I didn’t do anything to rush them, but c’mon we wasted more time standing there than we would have if we woulda just asked the guy for help. It was obvious he would help out, but they still played the beat around the bush game for at least 30 or 45 minutes. At last everyone agreed on what to do; we would head across the city and get the key and then head back to the garage.

Tokyo is a big city though and it ended up taking us the rest of the night to get the key and get back to the garage. When we actually got to the garage it was time for Sean and I to get the train back to the dorm as we had class later that day.
The experience had the potential to be something totally unique and exciting, see cool cars, practice more Japanese, take nice photos, but in the end it was around 70-80% troublesome doing nothing or sitting in the back of the car with the wind blowing in my face trying to sleep. Gotta love the Tokyo Underground though.

Once again I found myself heading south on the I-5 corridor. It was Saturday and that meant game time in Corvallis. I tried to stay near the speed limit to conserve some gas, but others around me were obviously excited for the game. Droves of cars with beaver flags flailing in the air streaked past me, heading for Reser stadium. Rain had fallen earlier in the day and the air had a distinct Oregon freshness about it. As I neared Corvallis I thought of how nice it was to be back home.

With just my D90 and a Nikkor 70-200mm VR I came into the stadium, by now more than half full. I knew that I had missed being on campus, going to sports events and taking photos, and just generally being involved at OSU, but I wasn’t aware just how much I missed it. Tears of joy almost came from my eyes, but that sight wouldn’t have been a proper one for a sports photographer.

My joy continued into the 2nd half of the game, but by 3rd quarter the beavers were down and it looked like No. 17 Cincinnati was going to pull off a victory. The beavers still played as if they had a chance, but it was obvious this was going to be the first loss of the season. After the game I walked away sad, towards the photo office, but still excited for the season to come. This is OUR season…

Now that we’ve covered all the things I didn’t like very much about Japan let’s see what I have enjoyed. Remember that all this is from my own experience and most of my time I spent in Tokyo. So if you go somewhere else in Japan or even a different part of Tokyo you’re going to have different experiences. Take what I’ve said with a grain of salt and just think about it rather than absolutely rejecting or accepting what I say. On to the things I’ll miss!

Sento/Ofuro – Before I came to Japan I’d never used a group shower like some kids during sports. I’d never really been naked much around other people so I was uncomfortable with my body. The first time I entered the ofuro at my dorm I thought I’d be so embarrassed, but as I melted into the hot water of the bath all my worries went away. When I went to Kyoto I went to the public sento everyday, I even used the bath with a fully tattooed yakuza, but I never felt embarrassed or weird the whole time. It’s surprised even me how comfortable I am with the public baths now. I can’t wait to do some hot spring bathing in the nude back home. I hope my friends are ready!

Convenience/Ease of Trains – While I don’t like having to adhere to their schedule it’s simply amazing that you can get almost anywhere in Japan by train and using them is easy too.

Living in one of the “World Centers” – Tokyo is one of the largest and most “important” cities in the world. The biggest companies are there, the newest products come out, the most famous people go there, everything is on the cutting edge. Coming from little ol’ Portland its crazy to be in a city with so much glitz and glam. While it’s not really my style it’s still pretty cool to see products before the rest of the world, or be able to by virtually anything because there is a store for it in Tokyo.

Speaking Japanese – While I’m doubt I’ll ever come back to Japan to live now that I’ve experienced it, I do enjoy speaking the language. I’m still pretty bad at it, but I love being able to go out and practice it whenever I want. The best is when you say something completely right and the person on the other end of the conversation understands you. Back home I only have a few classes of Japanese left so I doubt I’ll be speaking it much. Hopefully I can speak some with the Japanese exchange students, watch some anime, and start reading some manga. Maybe if my language skills become better I can use Japanese in at my job, whatever it will be.

Free Tissue – I went through allergies and a cold while I was here in Japan and I never once bought tissue. That’s as awesome as it can get and we need people in America to hand out tissue on the street.

Small Back Streets – Nothing is better than going out in the middle of the night with some friends and walking around the random backstreets of Toyko. It always feels like such and adventure and even if you don’t see something weird or amazing it gives you plenty of time to talk with your friends.

Drinking/Partying Outside – In Japan it’s legal to drink in the park or on the streets. While I don’t really enjoy drinking all the much it is fun to go out and walk around some random streets just drinking and talking. Also going to parks and having parties is the best because it’s very cheap and there’s plenty of room. I enjoyed the koen nomikai’s much more than the one’s in the bars. In America no drinking in the parks/streets and nobody ever goes out for walks. I guess I’ll have to start trying to convince people to hang outside.

With just a short time left in Japan I thought it would be good to somehow recap my time here or what I’ve learn. As I rode the train from Kyoto to Himeji in the Kansai area of Japan I had plenty of time to think. What I came up with was the idea to do a post about what I WON’T miss about Japan and what I WILL miss about Japan. Once I got to thinking I realized there was quite a lot of stuff in both categories so I decided to split it into two separate posts. First I’ll start with the bad and just get it all out of the way, and then when you read what I WILL miss later it will get rid of the bad taste in your mouth from this blog post. The order of things has no significance it’s just what happened to come to mind as I was thinking about the topic. Alright let’s get started.

Humidity – This is fairly common, I mean who actually likes sweltering heat accompanied by high humidity. The humidity didn’t really seem to hit until around mid July, but boy now that it’s mid august I can barely stand it. Particularly when I went down to Kyoto for a week I brought only 3 changes of clothes, meaning I had to where each set for a couple days. I smelled so bad that I could smell myself. I feel sorry for all the people that sat next to me on the train or in the McDonald’s that I slept at. Let’s just say I’m excited to get back to the mild Oregon weather!

Train Schedule – Planning around something always sucks and so with trains they only come at certain times and even stop from around 1am to 5am. With a car I’m able to leave when I like and if I’m running late I can speed up a bit ha ha. When I thought about Japan and how punctual the trains were, I was surprised at how unpunctual the people were. Then I realized that if you missed one express you had to usually wait another 15 minutes, or even just a standard train and the minimum you would have to wait is three minutes. So sometime’s it’s either you get to the meeting place really early, or you get there late. I’m usually always on time, so at first I was annoyed by people’s lateness, but soon I realized that most everyone showed up 15 minutes late. To adjust when someone said let’s meet at 6pm I would try to get there around 6:15pm and would usually meet them perfectly or still be a bit early. I better make sure I don’t do this back home.

Smoking in Restaurants – I remember that smoking in restaurants used to be legal in Oregon, but I don’t really remember it much. Now I know how much it sucks. I don’t like feeling like I just came out of a sleazy club/bar when I only at a sandwich at a coffee shop. I actually don’t really think it should be illegal to smoke inside of any restaurant, I think each individual restaurant can make their own rules. I know that the one’s in Japan that tend to have separate smoking chambers, yes they are glass chambers separating the smokers from everyone, or that don’t allow smoking are the ones I frequent. One of the worst places I went was a coffee shop called deotour, it was a freaking haze inside the place. I never went back. I can’t wait for fresh air back home when I eat out, even though I never do, which leads me to something else.

Going Out to Meet with Friends – People simply don’t hang out at each other’s houses in Japan. When you want to chill with a group of friends you either go to karaoke, go out to eat, go drinking, or stand around school and talk. I probably prefer the last as it’s the cheapest and it’s relaxed to just chill and talk. Honestly I can’t wait to get back home and go to people’s houses to just hang out though. You can bring some food over, maybe drink a little, watch a movie or play video games, and just sit around and talk. Sure I want to go out and do things with my friends too back home, but having to go out every single time we hang out is troublesome.

Japanese College – To put it bluntly, Japanese college sucks. Maybe I should be fair and say it sucks for me and my learning style. While I had a couple good classes while I was here for school, I usually felt like I was in high school with the material being covered and the difficulty of assignments. Most of the time there was not much effort to make you think, just give you some information. I did have several classes with foreign instructors which did challenge the students and try to make them speak up and think out loud. Usually this fell on deaf ears, but at least they were trying. These few teachers were the diamond in the rough. Luckily I didn’t come to Japan to learn anything but Japanese and Japanese culture, which both classes had good material and a good teacher.

Nomikai’s Multiple Times a Week – I started drinking in Japan and maybe it’s a good thing because it hasn’t really made me like it very much. During the middle of the term it wasn’t too bad, but at the beginning and the end of the school year sometimes there were 4 or 5 drinking parties a week. Now you’re not required to get really drunk, but of course everyone is always trying to get you to drink more, so sometime’s it can be difficult to stop drinking. One thing that I think makes these parties worse than the one’s back home are that usually everyone goes to a nomihodai, which is “all you can drink in 2 hours.” Is there any better plan for disaster? Everyone thinks “I need to drink a lot to get me money’s worth”, but is it your money’s worth to puke and be hung over? I don’t really drink back home so I don’t think I will be dealing with these parties too much anymore.

Planners – Everybody I met had a planner and if they couldn’t fit you in then you weren’t gonna hang out with them. Sometimes you had to schedule two weeks in advance, what is that shit? The worst part is that I would see these same people who were “busy” seemingly doing nothing. I just want to call someone up and say “hey wanna hang out?” and then just go meet up on the spot.

The next few days in Kyoto were spent riding the trains around the surrounding area. During the nights I wasn’t able to sleep well at Mac and so during the day I would ride the trains all the way to the end of the line and back, resting and sleeping the whole time. My feet had also gotten torn up pretty bad the first day, blisters were on the verge of popping. Riding the trains allowed these blisters to heal and I saved most of my energy for the last couple of days, when I would have a place to sleep at night and store my heavy gear at during the day.

Even though I wasn’t seeing a lot of the sights in Kyoto I did get to see some beautiful Japanese country side. On the second day I rode the train out to Sonobe on the Sanin/Sagano Line. The trick to riding out to all these places for cheap was buying a ticket for one station away from Kyoto station. Then ride the train to wherever, get off the train and switch to the returning platform. As long as you don’t leave the station then it doesn’t cost any extra money. So to ride all the way to Sonobe was around 140 yen and it allowed me to rest. Plus this line is really beautiful as it goes through a gorge, tunnels, and then finally through a wide open valley filled with tanbo (rice paddies).

The next day I rode out Tsuruga on the Kosei Line. This line runs along the coast of Lake Biwa (the largest freshwater lake in Japan) and was another beautiful ride despite the rain. As the rain streaked across the windows of the fast moving express train I gazed into the hills bordering the lake. The plants were so lush and green, reminding me of home. Soon my thoughts drifted to returning home and I reflected back on my experiance in Japan.

On the day that I would head over to the couch surfers house I took the Kyoto line out to Himeji. I purposely took the local train there and back so that I could kill as much time as possible and sleep. I had until around 5pm in the evening before I could meet up with my host and it was still early morning. The Kyoto line is far less spectacular than the Sanin or Kosei line as it mainly runs through the city. As I passed through Osaka I noted how much it looked like Tokyo. Then the train passed Kobe and the Akashi-Kaikyo bridge came into view. The bridge was HUGE! It is currently the world’s longest suspension bridge and I can say it absolutely dwarfed any of the bridges we have in Portland. The return from Himeji to Kyoto was filled with more wandering thoughts. I think these long trips on the train have helped me really bring a close to my stay here in Japan and allowed me to really think about how I feel.

After returning to Kyoto I headed for Kitano Tenmangu Shrine to meet up with my couch surfing host. I called him from a public phone and he came to pick me up. As we walked to his place we talked, introducing ourselves, and talking about various random topics. Yasunari, my host, was a 20 year old college student living in Kyoto. He’d actually applied to go to Aoyama Gakuin and got past the entrance exams, but decided to go to school in Kyoto instead. After getting stuff situated in his place, a small on room apartment which is typical of japan, we went out for okonomiyaki and yakisoba. With a real place to rest I planned what to do the next day and promptly fell asleep at his place after returning from dinner.

When I originally decided to go to Kyoto I’d planned to stay with couch surfers and at hostels. Then around a week before I left I realized that pretty much all the hostels were full for the time I would be in Kyoto, so I would have to rely on couch surfers only. I began sending out ton’s of messages from couchsurfing.com to anyone who lived in Kyoto and had recently been active on the site. I’d bought my shinkansen ticket and was pretty much ready to, only a couple days until leaving, but still had not heard back from anyone. What to do?

I remembered the times I’d spent at McDonald’s in Shibuya before the trains had started. There had to be 24 hour McDonald’s in Kyoto, I thought. After using the Japanese McDonald’s site to search for 24hr Mac’s in Kyoto I began marking them all down on my Kyoto map. This way, wherever I was in the city, I could find a Mac somewhat nearby to stay at. Then, just a day before I left, a couch surfer let me know I could stay with him on the last two nights of my trip. Now I only had to stay at Mac for four nights. Four nights couldn’t be that bad.

On the first night after my great soak at the sento I set off for a McDonald’s only ten blocks away. Once arriving I got some fries, a burger and a water, went up to the second level and proceeded to fall asleep. There was a couple next to me talking so it was hard for me to really get to sleep. Eventually I did, but only for a short while. Around 1:30am a worker shook me awake and told me they would be cleaning the second level, so it was closed. I got my stuff and headed for the first floor, where there were only a couple of seats, both taken. I looked at my map for a close McDonald’s, there were none. I knew I couldn’t make it to the closest one, which was practically across town, so I checked my map for parks. I found one only a couple of blocks away and started putting one foot in front of another.

Ten minutes later I came to the little park. I looked around for something suitable to lie on because I didn’t want to sleep on the ground. Japanese playgrounds are always dirt and sand, I’d just taken a bath and wanted to stay somewhat clean. Then, over on one side of the small park I spotted a bench, under a light, but actually shaded from the light. Perfect. I got in position and began sleeping, only to have bugs fall on me from the above light and mosquito’s attack my legs. I pulled up my hiking socks to my knees and paid no mind to the bugs from above as a drifted to sleep. My first day in Kyoto had come to an end and it was quite the adventure already.

I’ve already blogged about the Ofuro before and I’m gonna do it again because 1: I really like baths now, and 2: Japanese people really like baths. So an ofuro is basically just the name for a tub. At my dorm it was called the ofuro because it was just a bathtub at the dorm. Now there is also sento and onsen, both of which contain ofuro. Sento are bathhouses, usually within the neighborhood, which people go to bath and relax in the water. The sento is not as common today as it was 100, or even 50 years ago. This is due to almost all households having their own baths and plumbing now, which was not available before. I said sento contain ofuro, let me try to explain this. Within the sento are several baths (ofuro) with different features. The ones I’ve seen are: massage bath, medicine bath, standard hot water bath, mineral/onsen style bath, cold bath, electric bath, and a very hot bath.

• Massage baths are basically hot tubs as they have hot water and strong jets to massage your body.
• Medicine baths are baths with some sort of brown colored “medicine” added to it. I’m not sure what it is and I’d never heard about it before going to a sento.
• Standard hot water and very hot water baths are both pretty self explanatory.
• Mineral baths are baths with minerals added that mimic a natural hot spring (onsen). The keyword is “mimic.”
• A cold bath is a bath with really cold water. It also usually has water falling from above so you can put your head under it, kind of like a waterfall. I think this might be related to the practice of standing under a cold waterfall in nature, it’s supposed to make you strong. I think it’s from Buddhism, but don’t take my word for it. The cold bath is also usually placed next to the sauna, which most sento have.
• Finally there is the electric bath. Yes, it’s a bath of water with electricity going through it, although it’s a low voltage I’m sure, or at least I hope so. There are of course warnings that if you don’t have a good heart you shouldn’t get in, that’s very reassuring.

A common mistake by foreigners is to think that onsen and sento are the same, which they are not. The main difference is that onsen draw their water from hot springs, where sento use ordinary water heated up. Don’t shove sento aside though because they aren’t natural hot springs, they are very relaxing in their own right.

Back in Gion, I put my laptop back in my bag, took out my city map and figured out which way to go to the sento I’d found online. This night I would go to Gokou-yu Sento and the next night I would go to Funaoka “Onsen” (really a sento). Gokou-yu is fairly close to Kyoto station and can be found at this link on google maps: Directions to Gokou-yu

After walking across the city I was on my last spurt of energy as I entered the sento and said good evening. I paid about 600 yen for entrance to the sento, a rental towel, shampoo, and soap. This about what it cost at the other sento too. I went in and had the best soak of my life, trying out all the baths, even the electric one. I could only stand to sit in it for about a minute or two because the sensation was so awkward. The electricity makes your muscles flex, kinda like those muscle infomercial things that were all the rage about 10 years ago.

The place was really clean and kind of generic looking. There was a bottom floor with showers and about 5 ofuro, and then there was an upstairs with a sauna, a couple showers, and two more ofuro. It was a Friday night around 10pm (they are open until 1am) and the place was fairly packed. Then about an hour or so later a couple guys with full body tattoos came in. I’m talking about the whole sleeve, the torso, and onto the legs. Most likely they were yakuza (Japanese Mob), but they didn’t seem very mean or intimidating. They just wanted a nice soak like everyone else.

The next few nights I alternated between Gokou-yu and Funaoka (which can be found here: Directions to Funaoka Onsen ). Funaoka had a more atmospheric feeling, with a nice outdoor bath (rotenburo) and cool carvings on the wall and ceiling in the changing room. It’s also more famous so there are more foreigners there, so if you want to just be around Japanese people beware.

Why did I go to these sento so frequently? Why not just take a shower or bath in my hotel room? Well my hotel didn’t exactly have any showers, unless there are secret one’s inside McDonald’s. After my long bath at Gokou-yu, I headed for the closest McDonald’s for my first go at staying the night without a real bed.