After a roughly two-hour drive, we arrived at our destination. It looked pretty much exactly like I expected a Japanese seaside town to look.
Hanako headed into a nearby restroom with Galactic Overlord Hodemonster V for his daily feeding (which consists partly of breast milk, partly of the innocence of newborn puppies), while Krust, Hodezor and I headed into the nearest local convenience store, where a pretty young girl with the most shockingly blackened teeth I've ever seen in my life sold us some of the local brew. Among the selection on offer was this:
Beer brewed with cherry blossoms.
You know, I'm not sure why all this stuff still surprises me. Somebody could come up to me and go "Hey, did you know that when the original Space Invaders came out in the arcades, the country was so swept up in the craze that the entire island's supply of 100-yen coins got used up and the national mint had to triple their production in response?!" and I'd be all, "Wow, that's amazing!"
Or someone could go, "Hey, did you know that a while ago there was a Bulgarian sumo wrestler competing in the national tournament who beat the reigning champion, which prompted the advertising agencies to use him as their poster boy for Bulgarian yoghurt, making Japan the only nation in the world that buys more Bulgarian yoghurt than Bulgaria?!" and I'd be like "Get outta here, man!"
Yeah.
As an aside:
I am definitely moving to this country.
So. After Hodemonster the Younger had had his fill, we headed to a kaiten sushi restaurant situated right across the street from the convenience store. It had some beautiful traditional furnishings and a lovely view of the Pacific Ocean.
The sushi was absolutely exquisite. I now see the difference between okay sushi and good sushi. The first place we went to was merely okay; this place was, to put it lightly, DA BOMB ASS MOTHERFUCKING DIGGITY.
Note how intently Hodemonster V is studying the food. Mark my words: years from now, when the mind control ray is activated and the dropships descend from the sky, you can bet your ass it's gonna have something to do with sushi.
One lip-smacking meal later we headed down to Jogasaki Coast, where an unusually penile lighthouse towered over vast tracts of incredible natural beauty.
Just as I was preparing to take the photograph of all photographs, the most beautiful slice of nature photography ever pixel-rushed onto digital form by a human eye, my camera, with a schadenfreudian whirr and an obnoxiously laconic "BATTERY EMPTY" message, gave up the ghost. Words will therefore have to try and do the sight justice. Here goes:
It was really cool. No, seriously. REALLY, REALLY cool.
I hope you get the picture.
After bounding around Jogasaki coast for a while, getting awful scared on an awful big bridge, ruining our shoes on some sharp rocks and generally having lots of Japanese people stare at us more than they stared at the scenery (which, in all fairness, might have had something to do with Hodemonster V, who possesses an hypnotic power over mortals which automatically forces them to hover around him making arcane faces that look like this ^_^ and perform mystical chants that sound something like: "AAAAA KAWAAAIIIIII"), we headed back to the car. Next up: onsen.
Onsen are Japanese hot spring bath houses. They're really something else. The place we went to was more than just an onsen, really; it was pretty much a full-blown spa, offering just about anything you could possibly want to refresh and relax yourself.
It began, as many things do, with a shower. For anyone who's been in a shower in, say, a swimming pool in Iceland, this particular shower would be something of a surprise. None of this standing around in a big brightly-lit area and trying your luck with shower spouts that are either hot enough to boil ice cream or cold enough to freeze fire, coaxing horror-movie green goop out of a hostile-looking plastic box on the wall in ritual preparation for a chlorine-ridden swim through some thirteen-year-old prankster's bodily fluids.* No no.
Here, you have booths. Partitions between each shower. Each booth has a removable shower head and multiple places to fasten it. There are four different soap containers - shampoo, conditioner, body shampoo and face wash - and there's a seat. Everybody sits down while they're washing up. It's entirely conceivable that this was the best damn shower I've ever had in my life. I don't know whether to be happy or sad about that.
After this, we sat down in rock-ringed outdoor hot spring waters (pumped up to the third floor of the building, into an outdoors area with absolutely no barriers between the bathers and the ground below) and enjoyed a breathtaking view of the surrounding bay. Sitting there, with nothing but a sheer drop between you and the Pacific, the majesty of the environment filling your heart to the brim, there is only one thing you can think:
"God damn, there's a lot of totally naked dudes all around me."
Okay, that's second. The first thing I thought was "I could collapse from a massive coronary right now, and I'd be content in the knowledge that at least I'd die in paradise."
After an hour spent jumping between different tubs, including a soul-nourishing stint in the blue olive-smelling water of a small tub (which kind of felt like the Blue Lagoon without all the German tourists), we headed down to the first floor to grab some food. I forget the names of what people had, but since the food pictures are always popular I did of course take pains to oblige:
(Hanako's food is not pictured; she wasn't there when we got our food [Hodemonster The Younger needed feeding at the time] and, having put the camera away, I completely forgot to ask her about it when she got back. Sorry, Hana-chan.)
After a meal which was, by all accounts, delicious (with the notable exception of the Japanese egg pudding, a concoction I am certain would be capable of murdering my soul, were I to ever eat more than two spoons of it without throwing up), we headed back out to the car and began the long drive home. Before we left, I snapped a few shots through the window of the onsen cafeteria. I beg pardon for the spots, but this is the closest approximation I can give of the view from the third-floor spring itself.
Two and a half hours later, we were home. A chilled-out evening ensued, wherein the Hodezor's card-gaming friends showed up and commenced collaborative preparations for this weekend's tournament. Yours truly, exhausted from hours of sitting in a car and playing Everybody's Golf on the PSP, conked out early.
Next up: a trip to Arguably The Coolest Restaurant In The World. Stay tuned, lords and ladies. Love and peace.
*It must, at this point, be noted that my perception of Icelandic swimming pools is in all ways healthy and natural, and that I have no idea what you're talking about.
