The Longest Day of My Life

Fresh air, warm sunlight, and gentle breeze welcomed me as I stepped out from Haneda airport. The scene I saw many times before seemed very special after spending six-month in Saipan, a very special island located in Northern Mariana Island. It is not an exaggeration to say that I was detached from technology for six-month. I was speechless to see so much technology at once suddenly. Even though I was half Japanese myself, I felt very awkward talking to Japanese, who lived their whole life in the city with leading technology. I checked all my belongings and caught a taxi. I stuck my head out the window checking the humongous sky scrapers with colorful neon lights all the way to Nobribetsu, where ryokan (Japanese inn) is very famous.

This was my first time traveling alone to Japan, and spending a night of my own. It was a very cool experience, but on the other hand, I felt super nervous about everything that is surrounding me. I had to plan my own schedule: what to eat, where to go, and what to do. So I came to conclusion to spend a night in ryokan, where food, shelter, and recreation are served. Choosing which ryokan to stay wasn’t that hard because I already checked via internet. I decided to stay in Noguchi, a ryokan that just went through a huge renovation.

Old lady wearing kimono greeted me with warm smile and led me to my room. One thing that caught my eye was an escalator. It was rather unusual for ryokan to have an escalator because most of the ryokans aim for a traditional Japanese inn. My room door was also very similar to other hotel room doors. I opened the door and turned on the light. 52inch Flat plasma tv, Bose speaker, laptop, and queen sized bed filled the room, but the most surprising thing was an individual hot spring. I have always dreamed of having my own little hot spring and there it was. I stripped faster than any other time and plunged myself into the hot spring. After 30min of nice and hot bath, I came out wearing a yukata (traditional cloth) to eat kaiseki, a traditional multi-course Japanese dinner. It was kind of freaky that someone just came in to my room and set a perfect dinner and left, but I was too hungry to think about anything.

After dinner, I decide to tour the ryokan. I took an unusual escalator down to the basement floor. There I saw another huge hot spring, and since I wanted to bring the 100% out from this travel I ran inside the hot spring not noticing the small memo that was posted on the board. The larger hot spring was placed outside. After 5min people start to came in speaking Japanese. There was nothing unusual about naked people walking in but, this time was more than unusual. It wasn’t a man, monkey or other animal; it was bunch of old women. I ran inside a little bush to hide myself before they scream. Now you might think that this is ordinary in Japan, but time has flown and things have changed. I seriously thought they came into the wrong side, but I was wrong. The very special aspect about this ryokan is that after 5pm they change the side of the hot spring so both genders can enjoy different kind of hot spring.

I decided to wait until they leave, but I wasn’t the only one who wanted to bring 100% out of this ryokan. They start to talk about celebrities and Korean drama Iris. Suddenly one woman asked the others, “What is Iris?” one kind woman insisted that she wants to tell this woman a brief summary of Iris, and I’m telling you Iris is a very complicated drama. They spent an hour talking about the drama not knowing that I was hiding behind the bush. I even thought about putting a towel over my face and run out the door. However, I was just not brave enough to do it. So I waited another 10min wishing for them to leave. They finally stood up and went out the door. I waited another 5min just to give them enough time to change however, not knowing that women enjoy talking while they are changing cloth. They finally saw me, but their reaction was nothing close to what I thought it would be. They were surprised but they gently asked me if I didn’t see the note on the board. They kindly went inside the hot spring again so that I could change my cloth. This was my first time traveling alone and I encountered a lot of incidents, but one of the most memorable one.