Cracking crabs and clacking clogs

It was with slight nostalgia that Lisa and I headed out to Kinosaki Onsen on Sunday, probably because we were driving up there in early March, in a rented Mazda, to stay for 1 night at a little Japanese inn with a crab hotpot laid on for dinner. If it weren't for our wrinkles and the chronically sensible car we drove up in, you'd swear it was 2006.

Having packed a little overnight bag on Saturday night, we caught the train out to Shin-Kobe station (the shinkansen one) mid-Sunday morning and were shown to our little Mazda Demio. Once we had worked out which button was "avoid toll roads thank you very much" on the navigation system (40 bucks to use the highways?), we chucked our stuff in and tootled out of the city. It's a 3-4 hour drive up to Kinosaki and a very nice one at that - a mixture of inner city, suburban and rice paddy countryside separated by wiggly mountain roads. It's an awfully full country this one, and there doesn't seem to be anything odd about driving through acres of farmland 5 minutes out of a major city. The last time we went up, we were in a convertible which was an incredibly dumb idea smack bang in winter and I'm surprised we didn't end up with a pool on wheels by the time we got there. This time we were quite happy to travel in comfort and even a little economy car seems like a Ferrari when you're hurtling around the cliffs (constantly singing "She'll Be Comin' Round the Mountain", much to Lisa's chagrin).

We stopped and had kaiten (conveyer belt) sushi for lunch, which started a very healthy albeit temporary health kick. When I next looked at the clock we had about 45 minutes to go. The whole drive felt like an hour - easy, fun and sightseeingy. We arrived in good spirits and squeezed down a bikepath-sized street to our hotel, a traditional Japanese inn just off the main drag. They busily parked our car, helped us up the stairs with our luggage and got us settled in with some tea while they explained how everything worked. The main objective in Kinosaki seems to be hardcore relaxation - we had a kimono-clad lady as our personal caretaker who seemed appalled at the suggestion of us doing anything other than eating, drinking and taking baths. Dinner and breakfast are served in the room and when you're not doing that, you're out soaking. You're provided with a yukata (dressing gown thing) and bath coupons and throughout your stay, you're free to get as pruney as you like at any or all of the 7 onsens in the area. We chucked our stuff away and got dressed, put on our wooden clogs and headed out.

Clogs are very hard to walk in, I've decided - because they're a bit raised, they kind of propel you along in a slow but purposeful gait that makes me think of Robocop. I thought we were going to be frozen outside in our gowns, but after the first bath we were toasty and we kept going from there. Most had very pleasing gimmicks - the first one had a pipe that blasted jets of water down on your shoulders will all the force of a very large smiling masseur. My favourite one though was a "European style" bath, with big Roman pillars and stern looking stone heads spitting water everywhere. There was a mist sauna that smelled like really strong mint and an outdoor bath up on the top floor (the first time I've ever climbed stairs naked, I might add) with the mountains in the background. Indulgently, I hopped in, sunk down out of the cold air and watched the steam whip off the water. I'm not hugely into baths, but this was another level of awesome entirely.

After that, we headed back to our room where the table had been moved out of the way in favour of two lacquer tray settings stacked with sashimi and all the elements of crab hotpot. The kimono lady appeared again to light up our pots and we got into it. We had long crab forks to scoop the meat out, vinegar to dip it in and a whole bunch of stuff I don't think I've ever eaten before to go with it. It was all very fresh and beautifully presented and most of it was excellent, apart from the shark cartilage and a pink thing that tasted like a dishwasher tablet. Intriguingly, the lady showed up after we were finished and dished us up a bowl of rice each, but she made it look so nice when she carefully scooped it out of her lacquer bowl that we couldn't refuse. The teapot kept reappearing full of hot tea again, so we sat there for quite a while just doing what we were supposed to do. After a while the lady poked her head around the door and nervously asked if we were thinking of going out again. We figured it was as good a time as any to poke around the shops, most of which stay open until 10.

A conspicuous English pub seemed to be the only thing that wasn't open so from what I can gather, people in Kinosaki keep themselves amused on a Sunday night by going to cork-gun shooting galleries and ancient pachinko machines. We had a poke around the souvenir shops, tried some Kinosaki drinking vinegar (which was surprisingly nice) and found ourselves in the liquor shop looking for something weird as a nightcap. After trying a few things, we settled on some red plum wine and headed back to where our futons had magically appeared. By the time we went to bed, the wind had picked up into a Wizard of Oz style cyclone so unfortunately the banging of our wooden windows kept us awake for a lot of the night. Even so, another couple of baths amongst the waterfalls and a bit of breakfast got us back on our feet pretty quickly.

Before we left, we made sure to get some of the local specialties. First, soft serve ice cream (black sesame for Lisa and Japanese cheese cake for me) and then a crab stick. This actually had the better half of a crab leg in the middle and a claw bit sticking out the bottom to hold it together. I'm glad I was watching what I was doing when I ate it - the shell wouldn't have been nearly as nice.

Before long, it was time to hop in the car and head back to Kobe. As an antidote to all the healthy stuff, we had fried chicken for lunch and then had a progressive dinner at no less than 3 fast food chains. In an unrelated(?) note, I am now sick. I should be right as rain by the next long weekend in a couple of weeks though - time to start planning for that one too, methinks. Lots to see and not enough time to see it.

All up, it was an awesome trip and I wish we had had longer there. If we end up at a loose end later in the year we might have to head back - the concept of lying in a corpulent heap while having tea and expensive seafood poured into you is a solid one. There's also something intensely satisfying about sitting outside naked in the middle of winter in perfect comfort. Take that, nature.