- nagano chapter: asama onsen -

currently listening to – Around the World (FLOW)
mood – slightly depressed

phrase of the day – raksasa gila seks



いざ、温泉へ！！！！

translation: now, let’s go to the hot springs!!!

24 december. Christmas eve. had a very cool (literally and figuratively) experience, skating on ice. yes, we made it to the skating ring after all.

left the inn in the morning and went to Asama Onsen by bus. from there, we took a cab to our destination. the thing about “the skating center is across the mountains” was so true. our cabs wandered along the winding road in the mountains for what seemed like hours, till some of us got carsick… by the way, I’ve read this LJ post of another friend and she mentioned about motion sickness. I totally agree with her. I don’t get motion sickness on boats but, heck, why do I sometimes feel dizzy when im on buses or cars?

^ the Misuzu Lake ^

the unmistakable structure of a skating center loomed before us as the cab was passing by a lake. the first impression about the place was… “WOW… it IS a skating center..” – most of us didn’t expect to come to an international-level skating ring, that’s why. we paid for the entrance fee and the skating shoes (the girls took the shoes for figure-skating, and the one and only guy in our group took the speed shoes) at the counter and headed for the lockers to store our valuables.

seriously, it was cold (saw a bit of snow there but they looked more like frozen water from the freezer.. anyway I was well-prepared for it) and slippery. do realize that that was my FIRST TIME traveling on footwear that MOVES. to make this statement more understandable… I have NOT tried roller-skating, roller-blading, skateboarding or anything of that sort. sad me, yes. it was only recently (like… a few years ago, when I first got my TWO-wheeled bicycle in secondary 2) that I learnt how to ride a bicycle. and I’ve only officially received my proper driving license less than a month ago.

^ oh it's skating RINK.. paiseh i read the japanese one.. which says "center" ^

^ main entrance of the skating center ^

^ a quarter of the skating ring. that white stuff on the left is snow.. ^

anyway here I was, trying to reach out my first step on ice. while everyone else was having fun gliding (or maybe not, for some) everywhere. felt very grateful that 2 of my friends tried what they could to teach me the most elementary way to skate. first you kick off the ground with one of your legs, and then you balance with your other leg. one… two… one… two… try leaning forward so that you don’t fall down. yes. that’s how you make a start. and I managed to move on, by literally “walking” on the ice. damn.

people say that after falling a million times you’ll finally learn how to skate. I thought I really fell a million times. with styles. backwards, forwards… first touching the ice with hands, knees, ass… believe me the bruises looked furious. I deserve an award for making efforts. and thanks to the many full-of-impact fallings, my pretty mobile phone strap (made of metal, which I bought in Nagoya during my bus journey to Tokyo) broke into bits. towards the end, it turned out that I could actually skate without walking. was able to skate faster than one of my friends who learnt skating earlier than me. probably because I was desperate when trying, with all my might, to chase after my friends, who *claimed to be* the faster skaters in our group….

^ skating shoes!!! it's as unstable as wearing high boots.. ^

well, fun moments end very fast, you see.

before we knew it (or rather, before I knew it), we’ve already spent more than 2 hours in the skating ring (once you paid the entrance fee, you can skate all you want until the closing time). time to say bye-bye. most of us could no longer stand the cold air, so we had to retreat into the building. called the cabs, and we returned to Asama Onsen bus terminal. from there, we walked to the hot springs building for some real action – STRIPPING IN FRONT OF FRIENDS AND ENTERING THE ONSEN SEEING EACH OTHER’S NAKED BODIES.

but of course, it’s separated into male’s bathroom and female’s bathroom. not interested in seeing old men’s privates, anyway…

^ main entrance of Asama Onsen ^

I have been to public baths for quite a few times in japan before, to tell the truth. so it wasn’t such a big challenge taking off clothes in front of people, or even people I know. again, we paid for the entrance fee (and small towels) and off we went into the bathrooms.

first there’s the locker cum changing place, where everyone’s supposed to strip and then enter the shower place. NAKED, of course. you MUST clean yourself at the shower place (soaps and shampoos are provided) before dipping yourself into the hot baths, for obvious reasons. these are simply not normal public swimming pools where one can pee and poop all he wants in the water. for goodness sakes that too shouldn’t be done but I just don’t understand why even adults do this in reality.

there are different types of baths in an onsen too. as for Asama Onsen, there were the shower-type, hot bathtub type and so on for the indoor ones, and there were the cold and hot baths for outdoor ones. I couldn’t really stand the hot air for a long time so I spent most of my time outside, where there was better ventilation. it was fun taking a hot water bath out in the cold. imagine, 5°C in the afternoon. you spend your time “smoking” – as in, creating white smokes with your own breath when you’re in a very cold place – while enjoying staring at the other naked people (grannys, and your friends, who’re hopelessly trying to cover their entire body with a tiny towel), or being stared at (which was the usual thing when it comes to us foreigners). you go out of the hot water when you start feeling dizzy, and you dip your feet into the icy-cold water bath which is right next to the boiling hot one. then you give yourself some cheap thrills by dipping your feet into the hot one again (which is very painful).

that’s how I spent my time in the onsen. found out that my bruises were everywhere only when I was there too. it’s like.. they’re even on my ass. very nice patches of Australia and New Zealand. not to mention I have China and Mongolia on my knees as well (err.. to minimize the possibility of misunderstanding, please don’t think about it too politically). the almost-broken right wrist, fortunately, healed after the bath.

revived and refreshed, we left the onsen for dinner. came to this Korean restaurant along a dimly-lit stretch of road… and we had a very HUGE meal. rice, vege, meat, noodles, steamboat…… you name it. and obviously we had to pay a lot in the end.. hehehehehe… that was my second time eating in a Korean restaurant, and my second time paying a large sum of money for it too. the first time happened during my part-timer days as a translator for the Japanese TV cameramen for 11th ASEAN Summit. we – the Japanese cameramen crew from TBS, TokyoTV, NipponTV, TVAsahi etc, and I – were kinda tricked by the restaurant into paying much more than what we expected. ahhh the trauma….

since it’s Christmas Eve, we had to return to the inn soon after dinner to prepare for Christmas. before the winter holidays began, each of us were appointed a “secret santa”. which means, we’re to buy a present for someone in the group, but secretly. I had an adventure trying not to reveal myself to the person whom im supposed to get a present for. so I was looking forward to the present-giving time.

meanwhile, while waiting for the clock to point at 12, we played random word search using eMule in the room (our Brazilian friend has internet). it all started with our New Zealand friend asking the Brazilian friend to download the song “Grandma Got Ran Over By A Reindeer”. it did occur to me that the thing that we want will be hiding among the many weird files with names that are associated with sex and porn.. anyway the point is, we played with the search engine by typing words like “grandma”, “grandpa”, “underground”, “Japanese”, “New Zealand”, and… many more im sure. try it and you’ll find out for yourself (oh, we found the parody of the Grandma song, “Grandpa Got Ran Over By A Beer Truck”).

and slowly, the clock ticked towards the exciting, next day…