Girls' Weekend - Day 2

Saturday morning, girls' weekend started out with a nice relaxing morning in the room. Fiona was dying to put on her robe again, so we went to the combine next to the hotel (7-11, no sulurpees!) and grabbed some yogurt, cereal, and bananas for breakfast. Then we went back to the room and lounged in our robes. Fiona read some good ol' Ramona Quimby and I tried to mentally prepare myself for our next plan for the day - our first onsen experience!

I talked a bit about onsen in a previous post, but basically it's a large bath in natural hot spring water. If you're interested in reading more about the generally accepted rules for how to enjoy an onsen, there's a good write-up here. Generally, the most shocking part of the experience for westerners is that an onset may only be entered sans clothing. And also, only small hand towels may be taken into the bathing area with you (although these should never be put in the water). Most places have separate onsen for men and women (as was the case at our resort), but it's still a bit of a mental hurdle to get past.

The onsen at our resort opened at 11AM. Figuring it would probably be pretty empty at that time of day and having a few hours to kill before our afternoon activity, we went over to have a soak before lunch.

As it turned out, we had the place completely to ourselves. We carefully followed all the pre-bathing rules to the best of our ability and then headed in for our very first onsen. The bathing area was beautiful, complete with both indoor and outdoor baths and views out onto the mountains. I can see how this would be an amazingly relaxing experience under the right circumstances. We, however, didn't last long during our first soak. It was nearly 80 degrees outside and we were already a little sweaty, so a nice long soak in water coming from a 104 degree source just wasn't so enticing. We got very hot very quickly. There was also the issue of low entertainment value in the mind of a six-year-old, so boredom set it pretty quickly removing the chance for much relaxation on my part. But, we did enjoy our introduction to the onsen, even if it was short lived.

One of the many rules of the onsen is no photography - obviously it's a big privacy issue. I certainly wouldn't want someone snapping away while I was walking around sans clothing. That being said (and I still feel really guilty about this - I'm sort of afraid to admit to it publicly for fear I'll be kicked out of the country), we didn't see another soul the entire time we were there, so just before we left, I couldn't resist grabbing my phone and snapping a few quick pictures. I had to do it! For the sake of the blog! What's a post about onsen with no pictures??

After wrapping up our soak, we grabbed a quick lunch of onigiri, bananas, and yogurt (our go to conbini lunch) and made our way to the activity desk at the resort for our rafting trip. It was a perfect day for it - sunny skies and 85 degrees. Here's a little before and after that illustrates well just how how much we enjoyed the afternoon:

I was prepared to have this be the sum of my pictures from rafting because, you know, cameras and water don't really mix. But, this rafting company has really covered all the bases. If you ever find yourself in Hokkaido, I highly recommend Niseko Rafting Club. From a genuinely warm welcome as we stepped off the shuttle, to dry suits for a more enjoyable day on the still pretty chilly river, to fun mid-trip activities, to a camera man that followed us down the river documenting our trip, they really delivered the full package! And, they were so good with Fiona, she loved it! In fact, we both enjoyed ourselves so much that we booked a kayaking trip with them for the next day. But before I get ahead of myself, here are some highlights from rafting:

Very focused on the safety briefing:

Demo of white water swimming position:

Ready to launch:

So much encouragement for the peace-pose!

About halfway down the river, we stopped for a little break. While we were walking around, the guides started stacking the rafts up on top of each other to create a platform for jumping into the water. Fiona looked at me with a nervous look on her face and I quickly assured her that it was just for people who wanted to jump, "No one has to jump if they don't want to." She asked if I was going to jump and I told her I would if she wanted me to (although I wasn't thrilled about the idea). She watched a bit more and then turned to me and said, "Mommy this does NOT seem like a safe idea." Relieved, I thought the topic was closed and I was off the hook. A few minutes later, the guides finished building their platform and asked, "Who wants to go first?" I scanned the group to see who the first brave soul was going to, but there were no immediate volunteers. Instead there were lots of smiles and cheers and clapping. It took me a couple beats to figure out that they were all for my daughter - the youngest person in our group - who had scrambled up into the boat the second they had asked for volunteers!!

I've said it before, but I'll say it again: this kid is awesome!

She popped out of the water all smiles and said, "Mommy! That was so awesome! Now its your turn!!" As you can see, I was less than thrilled. And yes, I plugged my nose...

Perhaps the most awesome thing about this series of pictures is Fiona's excitement on my behalf!

After everyone who wanted to jump had their chance (and one crazy lady squeezed in another), it was time to continue down the river.

Ready for launch:

Starting to look like we know what we're doing:

What a perfect afternoon!

As you saw in the before and after shuttle ride pictures above, we were exhausted by the end of our trip. I naively thought that in rafting, the river did most of the work, but boy was I wrong. 

We picked up a couple bowls of ramen for dinner, headed back to our room, and ate dinner in our new favorite robes. Then, we headed to bed to rest up for a morning of kayaking!