Our Private Tour Guides in Japan
By Lothar. Filed in Japan |
The Japanese people are really looking out for us. Being the only Caucasian tourists, wherever we have been so far, we usually get all the attention. After our bathing adventure, we were ready to leave the Dogo Onsen Spa in Matsuyama, but were stopped by a Japanese manager, who gave us a private tour of the Royal Bath. It is the oldest hot-spring spa in Japan, built in 1894, and the emperor only used his private bath here 10 times. We saw the imperial bath, the top- floor resting lounge for drinking tea and eating sweets and even the royal toilet ( a hole in the wooden floor ! ). They were very proud to show us everything !
Next, we took the chairlift up to Matsuyama castle and toured this on our own. The castle looks similar to Wuerzburg`s
Festung Marienberg, only the roof has the Japanese curves.
On Friday, the 13th we took the train to Uchiko, which has some nice, old homes, dating back to the Edo Period. We walked from the JR station into town and stopped at the Uchikoza, a wooden Kabuki theater, built in 1916. Again a local lady took care of us and gave us an impromptu tour, including the basement area under the revolving stage. We learned that the audience is kneeling on the floor during the performance, no chairs required. Gabi is now a little less enthusiastic about attending a Kabuki performance.
At night we arrived in Kurashiki and walked around in search of a restaurant. We were very happy to find an Italian restaurant, but then very discouraged by the all Japanese menu and the lack of the sample plastic dishes being displayed. A lot of restaurants either have menus with pictures for the foreigners to order from or they permanently display the menu items in plastic. We started to walk out of the restaurant, when a Japanese diner got up, walked over to us and proceeded to translate the whole menu into English. The day was saved and we had a nice dinner, served by the non-English speaking waitress.