Shin-Osaka station was very busy this morning, and those travelers without reserved seats looked a little nervous as they joined the very long boarding lines. I was in the first class car so had no worries, and as always the journey was extremely comfortable.
That’s a real candid (not posed) selfie I took on the train. Kristin said I “looked dead” and she was at least half correct. I had pushed myself too much and it was time for a rest. That’s why I’m spending a couple of nights in another onsen town, Atami.
My room is ludicrously big. It’s as big as a large apartment, or even a small house! It has multiple rooms, and the cupboard contains 16 futon so I imagine it’s the sort of room used to sleep entire classes of school kids. It also comes with a projector in place of a TV!
It also has its own hinoki wooden bathtub! I had no idea of the room size or wooden bath when I booked, so these were nice surprises (although to be true the room is possibly too big).
The hotel also has a public bath – which I just came back from – and while it’s not as picturesque as the one I was in at Nara at 44 C it was heavenly for my aching bones.
Atami is an onsen town built on the seaside. Hot springs and a beach is a good tourist combination, and being only an hour from Tokyo helps as well. I was amazed how busy the station was when I arrived, although the host at my hotel says this month is off peak since it usually rains ‘every day’ in June.
After checking in I immediately walked to the ropeway, which if you’re keeping track of is my third this trip. At the top is Atami Hihoukan, a dated and kitschy museum dedicated to sex and erotica. It’s full of weird animatronics and art installations and is one of the strangest attractions I’ve ever visited! Apparently these used to be scattered all over Japan but this is one of (if not the) last one left. It was very popular today, and it seems most people found it as funny as I did.
The views from the ropeway station are fantastic, and you can see the entirety of Atami. The city is built on steep slopes, and aside from down at the sea level walking anywhere requires slopes and often stairs. Sometimes lots of stairs!
My hotel is four flights like this from the ocean, and at least that many from the station as well. I did a lot of walking today – over 20,000 steps as I have every day since arriving in Japan – and I’d say easily 1000 of them were stairs! So much for relaxing.
After the ropeway I headed back to the station area since there’s a lot of tourist shops there. I quickly noticed that 95% of them sell food, and most of those sell dried fish!
There’s so many different types of fish available, and some of them are actively being prepared right there at the shops. Others are dried and packaged, and some of these are very expensive (over ¥10000).
Of course I won’t try any of these, but it seems to be one of the things tourists visit Atami for.
Another food popular with the tourists is fried fish cakes, often sold on a stick like a hot dog. I saw many people eating these as they strolled, and stalls sell them in all sorts of varieties. Some combination of seafood and mayonnaise seems to be the most popular, and I don’t doubt KLS would eat this were she here.
There’s also some local version of custard or pudding that seems extremely popular based on the lines at the shops. One of them had a sign that briefly looked like shaved ice which excited me, but then filled me with momentary rage when I realized it was some sort of pudding 🙂
After dinner (a cup ramen in my room) I went down to the beach for an ice cream and saw this group of girls being professional photographed. They kept jumping over and over; obviously the intention was for the guy to get a photo of them all in the air. After I took the photo and walked away I heard loud squeals of joy from behind me so I assume they got the shot!
I had fun walking around today with no schedule, and even though it was strenuous the day was still somehow relaxing. As I mentioned I’ve soaked in the hot spring already tonight so all that’s left is to write some postcards before a long sleep.
Tomorrow is another lazy day in Atami, and I hope it’s even more relaxing than today 🙂