Ohhhh-nsen

Ohhh, the onsens. What a life of luxury.

So we show up at Kamakura Wednesday night, all full of optimism about the full treatment of Kamakura. Kamakura did not disappoint.

We found our tatami mats in a new onsen called Fujiya, full of very helpful and fluent Japanese, totally amused by Trevor:s monstrous shoes. They handed us a 3 page fax translation of the *rules of the onsen*, one of which is "during your dining time, a mat will be laid", which is to say, " we know when you eat, and while you:re doing that, we:re going to go in your room and make )(dinner) or put away (breakfast) your bed. And sure enough, we came back from our 6 course (7 including dessert) dinner to find our beds laid neatly, mine looking all normal, and Trevor:s with an entire extra comforter at the bottom. Trevor giggled. You really must hear Trevor giggle.

In any case, this was one night Trevor:s feet were not cold!

Thursday was our spa day. They have these small slices of tree trunk with red ribbon and three Onsen stickers. One slice of tree trunk gets you into 3 onsen of your choice for a group rate of about 11 bucks for all! And ohhh, the onsen. We look out on to waterfalls, streams, rustic wooden bridges. Intriguingly piled rocks. And your main job is to sit there, immersing oneself in the hot hot water as long as possible. (I:m guessing my *fitness* from Arizona has worn off, because I only had so much time before the most relaxing thing was sitting *out* of the water. The natives though, they have been doing this from infancy. Nothing too hot to bother them!)

After our rigeur of spas, we had 20 minutes to get back in civilian clothes and get up to the bus stop. Kamakura was in a valley. So, while we spent all day until 3+15 practicing relaxation, 3:15 to 3:35 was, find luggage and clothes and race-up-the-stairs-to-the-busstop time. The day of 4 spas would have been all for naught had we not just gotten on another 2 hour bus to get ourselves to Beppu.

What fools we are. Beppu is :another: spa town! We were pretty *spahed-out*, but there was some interesting stuff. Stay tuned.