Kinosaki Onsen, in the heart of the Japanese tradition

By LaPtiteLu

Last time, I told you about our short stay in Kyoto. Today I’ll tell about Kinosaki Onsen, the second step of our trip to Japan.
Ready for a full immersion in the Japanese tradition? Let’s go!

I wanted a ryokan, a traditional Japanese hotel, and I wanted hot springs. This is how I found the Tokiwa Bekkan hotel, a beautiful ryokan at the edge of Kinosaki.
We arrived in the early afternoon. A small bus was waiting for us at the train station and dropped us right at the entrance of the hotel where we were warmly welcomed in Japanese.
When we arrived in the loby, the staff asked us to take off our shoes to put sandals. You can not walk in the ryokan with shoes! Everything is beautiful, clean and traditional Japanese style.
We arrived in our room…. it was huge. The view of the garden was fabulous. The staff proposed us to wear the yukata, the Japanese dress.
The service was perfect. The staff were very friendly and like all Japanese, outrageously polite. Despite their non-existent english, our stay was very pleasant.

This was the view from our room. The garden was gorgeous.

After checking in, we went to the hot bath. That was the purpose of our trip! No bikini, no underwear, you must be naked in the public bath. You have to wash first and then go into the hot water. We stayed there for hours with mum chating…

After the long bath, we were very hungry. Kaiseki dinner was served in our room. The lady came a few times to clean the plates and bring more dish. It was delicious !

The table was covered with plates. There were many shapes of dished and many colour. It was so beautiful! We had sashimi, vegetable soup, snow crab which was delicious, tempura, miso soup… more dishes came, everything was good and delicate. We enjoyed the feast!

After this huge dinner, it was time to go to bed. A lady came to install our futon bed. They were very comfy!

The day after, breakfast was served in our room again. No bread and butter but grilled fish, tofu soup, sea weed and eggs, Japanese pickles… it is so different from what we use to have and yet extremely delicious!

We left the hotel to visit the city which was very small. But everything was so beautiful, adorable and charming that we spent hours taking pictures, getting lost in the narrow streets and spending our money in the souvenir shops.

Everything was cute, even the mark on the floor.

The sea was not too far, so there are a lot of fish and seafood. Some little fish were drying in the street.

Here was the famous snow crab.

We left the main road to get lost in the rice fields. The landscape was wonderful. The mountains surrounded the lake and the wind blew on the surface of the water. We felt lost at the end of the world.

We went back to the cute little street finding everything beautiful and adorable.

Some yukatas dress were drying in the street.

On our way back to the hotel, we found a long stair and we decided to explore. It seemed to never end. We were in the heart of the forest. There were no noise, everything was silent.

At the very top of the stair, we discovered a fantastic view of the mountain and the little city.

Second kaiseki dinner in our room after a big day full of discoveries. We wore our yukata ready for the tasting dinner. The menu was different from the day before and full of delicacies…

like this small crab that we ate with the shell…

Or this delicious hot pot…

Or these shrimp sashimi…

Or this head fish…

and these fish tempura…

After the dinner, we decided to do what we read during the day on a flyer : the best way to enjoy Kinosaki was to walk around the street by night wearing a yukata. That sounded interesting. We choose the most beautiful yukata offered by the hotel and went to the city.

The city was gorgeous by night. The lighting was beautiful and we could hear the sound of the wood shoes on the floor. First we were a bit embarrassed by dressing like this but we found out that everyone wore a yukata in the street! It was a very special and pleasant feeling. We couldn’t be closer to the Japanese tradition.

Another breakfast served in our room. Dry fish, tofu soup, clam soup, omelet, pickles and rice.

In the city, we could enjoy some foot bath at every corner. There were free and so hot! We just had to take off our shoes and enjoy the warm water. That was so relaxing after a long walk!

Almost time to go. We had a train to go back to Osaka and then a flight to Shanghai but we didn’t want to leave. We just wanted to stay longer and enjoy as much as we could. We discovered a little cimetery in the middle of the forest with some very old graves. It was beautiful! We took a cute little stone stair and try not to disturb the dead. We thought they are very lucky to be in such a nice place.