Ryokan Taiseikan and Trip's End

We had a very relaxing stay at Ryokan Taiseikan. (a Ryokan is a traditional Japanese hotel with tatami mat floors and Kaseki meals)
When we arrived, we were greeted in unison by several Japanese hostesses dressed in Yukata. They were all older women, the type you picture to be Grandmothers or Aunts. We were given a brand new pair of slippers and assigned a hostess (who was our waitress for the in-room meals). She showed us around our room and then served tea.
We put on our Yukata and then took a stroll around the grounds. The hotel was surrounded by naturally occurring hot springs. There were many open air baths built into the rocks. We returned to our room at 6pm for dinner. The meal you see in the picture is just the first course. Our waitress returned four more times with additional courses. The food was all very fresh and artfully prepared. This style of cuisine is called Kaseki in which the presentation of the food is very important. I got to eat many foods I'd never seen or tried before and learned a lot about Japanese cuisine.
After dinner we took a relaxing dip in one of the open air spas in the woods which we reserved earlier. It was sort of a rock waterfall with a lower and upper level and two spa areas. The upper level which was closer to the source of the spring was insanely hot. I couldn't even keep my foot in for more than a few seconds. The lower spa was more tolerable, but we could only withstand about 30 minutes of alternating 5 minutes in/ 5 minutes out. It was so wonderful though, especially just the experience of being out in nature like that.
We reserved a different hot spring bath the next morning, this time in a cedar spa tub (this photo). The custom is to bathe yourself, before you enter the spa, at the faucet (on the ground just out of the photo) by filling the small bucket and dumping it over yourself. There are bottles of shampoo and body wash to use. The tub is overflowing so that it is constantly being filled with fresh water.
When we returned to our room we had another multi-course meal which was very similar to the dinner the night before.



We checked out and returned to Tokyo that morning for the last day and night of our trip in Japan. By that point we were tired of carrying the camera around so I do not have any more photos to share. We spent the afternoon in Shibuya (yay Tokyu Hands!) and the night in Roponggi at a Beatles cover band club. We ended our trip listening to "Blackbird" with a heavy Japanese accent "Brackbird fry..." At 1am, the entire table of older Japanese business men next to us was fast asleep. Most of the bar, however, was cheering and still calling out requests. It was a good time.