When I was looking at Takayama as a possible place to visit, I looked up things to do.  One of the recommendations was to go to the Okahida area where there were a lot of hot springs resorts.  Why not stay a couple nights at a hot springs resort on the way to Takayama instead of doing a day tour from Takayama?  A little more research and I booked a room for two nights in Hirayu Onsen. 

Hirayu Onsen is a small village full of tourist accommodations, an unfriendly visitors center, a decent sized bus station, a couple restaurants and a lot of hot water.  I use the word hotel in this blog, but they are ryokans (guest houses).  There is water running under every street. Sometimes it’s in an open concrete ditch beside the street or in a ditch under the street with grates or pavers over it, and sometimes both.  You can hear it running everywhere, rushing, falling, trickling.  The town has three free foot baths sitting in different parks.  They are shallow pools with hot water to dip your feet in.  I’m sure every hotel has it’s own onsen bath. Most businesses seemed to have a small water feature out front too.

The hotel I wanted to stay at only had family sized rooms available for over $300 a night.  So I booked one in a less fancy hotel that was a little over $100 a night including breakfast and dinner.  My room was huge and overlooked a duck/koi pond.  It definitely wasn’t the high end hotel, but it would be good enough.  The hotel next to mine seemed to span quite an area including buildings on both sides of the street.  Every time I would go to or leave my hotel, there would be people from that hotel just milling around the street in their robes.

The day I arrived, I walked around town.  I went to the visitors center.  The guy at the desk never looked up once even when I stood right in front of him.  I picked up some maps and pamphlets and headed back out.  I found the town nature walk.  After about 15 minutes I decided I could check that of my list of things to do. I went to a gift shop and found the first foot bath.

The cost of my hotel room included dinner and breakfast. All the tables were the traditional tables where you sit on a mat on the floor. There were two dining rooms. In mine there were three single tables and a table for six. Most of the food was already laid out. A guy came over and lit a burner under the plate with beef and a burner under a dish with a white milky substance. He also brought me two different soups. The rest of the food was already on the table. The milky substance was tofu and it thickened as it cooked and then you put it in this delicious sauce. I tried everything except the river fish. Most of it was delicious. Most of it, I wasn’t sure what it was. One guy at the six person table came in, ate and left. Another came in, grabbed something he wanted to eat and left the room with it. The others came in and ate so fast they were done in under two minutes. The other single table guys came in after me and left before me. How did they eat so fast?

After dinner I went to the public bath at my hotel. In my room was a robe and towel for each day. There was also a pajama type top. I put on my robe and slippers to go down to the bath. When I was coming back I saw people in their robes with the pajama type top on top of the robe. Was that what I was supposed to do? I can’t decide if I like public baths or not. I’m thinking I’m not a huge fan.

Did you know that ducks wake up at 4:30am and start quacking loudly? I know that now. Breakfast was a similar experience to dinner in that the food was all laid out and most of it was mysterious. There was a goo on a leaf and a lady lit the burner below that plate. When the goo started to bubble because it was so hot, I took it and the burnt leaf off the plate. No, I was not supposed to do that. The lady shook her head and indicated that it was to remain on the burner. The leaf burnt to a crisp and the goo was stuck completely to it. I don’t get it. I think one of the first things I’m going to do when I get home is get an American breakfast. Although, I’m not completely against miso soup with breakfast.

On the map I got at the tourism place, there was a thing listed that had something to do with turtles. When I googled it I got one hit that Japanese make some product from soft shelled turtles (suppon). I got another hit that showed pink flowering trees. The translation was turtle nursery. So my first adventure for the day was to find out if this was a place where they raised turtles, sold products made from turtles or had a tree nursery somehow named after the soft shelled turtle. I was hoping for trees. It was trees! A grove of white and pink flowering trees. This is what I imagine it looked like all over Japan during cherry blossom season (which I just missed). I’m not sure why these were in full bloom, but they were a sight to see. The shades of pink ranged from white to baby pale pink to a slightly darker shade of pink. And when the breeze picked up, tiny petals fluttered on the breeze. They slowly drifted down to the ground, so graceful and soft. It was like some fairy tale movie. The building next to the trees had a tiny store in the front of a huge building. Inside were products I couldn’t identify. I didn’t stay long to look. Suppon is supposed to be very healthy and is used in stew for cancer patients as well as a supplement in Chinese medicine. I didn’t see any actual turtles.

I walked by the local ski resort. It looked to be about two runs in size. It was on the way to a waterfall. The waterfall was pretty, but the hike up to it was not in the shade so I was very hot when I got there. There was no cooling off in the waterfall as it was not accessible for close up inspection and the river below it was unfriendly. Another sightseeing stop in the general area was Big Tree, Onezuko. I found where I think the path went to get to Onezuko and it was straight up a narrow side sloping trail that could have used stairs. I did not want to come back down that. I was still hot from the waterfall walk so up didn’t look fabulous either. There would be no big tree for me.

Dinner was in a different area of the hotel tonight. I had a room to myself with a tall table and regular sized chair. It was a different assortment of mysteries. It was a different type of tofu still cooked over a flame. The beef tonight was cooked on the same leaf as I had for breakfast. I hope you are not supposed to eat the leaf. There was no way that was happening. All I could think of was “You’ve heard of Elf on a Shelf, now there’s Beef on a Leaf.” There was a different river fish tonight. It was the same “no way” from me, though.

After dinner I went to the public bath at the hotel I had wanted to stay at, but couldn’t justify the price. There were seven or eight outdoor pools and they were so clean. It felt like you were out in the forest instead out under the awning of the roof. I enjoyed this onsen much more than the one at my hotel. I was real glad I paid $8 to enjoy a new onsen.  Public baths were back on the thumbs up list.