They call me Dr Fish

In case there was any doubt, I think I'm officially old now; not necessarily because I bought a bottle of red wine on the way home on Friday night but because I was quite happy to have a glass of it and then stop (although that may have been because it was $6). "We'll keep the rest for tomorrow night," we said, then spent a hangover-free morning cleaning and dusting. The last bit of the bloody thing's still sitting there ready for the weekend; I'm starting to wonder if we should start enjoying our moderation in moderation, because I can see where this slow-moving rollercoaster ends up. "Was Japan good or bad?" the kids will ask. Lisa will close her Sudoku book and I'll glance up from the Financial Review.
"Yes."

Fortunately, cracks have started to appear in our shell of boring; after agonising about what to do during Golden Week (a week-long string of public holidays straddling April and May), we've finally bit the bullet and booked in a trip to Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This may turn out to be a very silly thing to do, because everything you can feasibly do in Japan during Golden Week has 2000 people already there trying to elbow you out of the way, but I'm still looking forward to it. Nagasaki is one of those cities that noone ever seems to go to and I have no idea why - I remember it being really nice. Failing all else, we've booked quite nice hotels so we'll be able to retreat into our rooms if the crowds are beyond the pale.

If this stuff's too good for you, they've got some crap

On Sunday we headed out to Arima Onsen with Mel and Adam to use the next visit on our discount tickets, vowing this time to spend a little bit more time in the town itself rather than just beelining for the baths. We hopped on the bus and as usual, I instantly made a new friend (I wish I were as fascinating to people I actually want to talk to). This time it was a chatty old fellow who completely ignored what we were saying and insisted on filling in the blanks on our lives himself. "Artist!" he said, pointing at Lisa and taking her shaking her head as a 'yes'. "What do you play? Violin? Flute? Piano?"
"Not an artist. A teacher!"
"Teacher! What do you teach? Violin? Flute? Piano?"
By the time the conversation had petered out, he had two new friends who both went to university, played instruments and occasionally tutored in their spare time. I had worked out which bus to get home, so I guess we both got something out of it.

Imagine this with some baths near it

We hopped off the bus and were reminded why we don't spend much time in the town itself; it's a sea of concrete boxes and faded bridges - the picture above is about the prettiest one I could find. We went to the tourist office and picked up a map of the local sights, which looks quite impressive until you realise it would take you about 10 minutes to walk from one side of the A4 page to the other (I should have guessed by the walking trails that burn up a muscular 18kcal). They try, bless them, but there's a limit to how exciting basket weaving and homemade pens can be.

The geisha hat was amazing though

Fortunately, the baths are some of the best in the country and the posh one we went to is quickly becoming my favourite. Normally it costs some eye watering amount of money to get into, but we managed to spot some multiple-use discount tickets late last year and have been making the most of them since. The crowd favourite is always the buckets - single-person outdoor wooden tubs that you can sit in or dangle your legs out of. My bucket-to-bucket conversation with Adam got a little bit awkward when a middle aged lady walked over and popped a thermometer in each, but at least she looked apologetic about it. We soaked in the iron bath for a while then headed inside to warm up in the sauna, followed by a plunge into the ice bath. I'm sure the hour averaged out to a comfortable temperature.

On the way out, we finally succumbed to our curiosity at the onsen staple "Doctor Fish" stand, also known (no less disconcertingly) as "fish massage". Basically, you stick your feet into a pool of water and hundreds of tiny fish munch away all the dead skin and nasties. This feels exactly how you imagine - tickly and very strange. It was a bit like a mild electric shock at first, but you kind of get used to their little jaws chomping away. After 10 minutes of this, my feet were smooth as a baby's bum but still seemed to be wondering what on earth had just happened; it was an interesting experience but I'm not sure I'd do it too often (I kept looking down expecting to see the water churning red).

We walked our virgin soles back over to the bus and set off on the pleasantly friendless bus trip back to Kobe; once there, we stopped off for dinner at our favourite restaurant in the whole world. We had all you can eat but held off on all you can drink, balancing out the sensible with a distinct lack of moderation in dumplings and egg tarts. Hold on to the safety rail and keep your hands and feet in the car at all times.