Yamashiro Onsen Trip 2

Dinner was crab full-course (>v<).

Started with beer, we had crab sashimi, crab steamed board, crab chawan-mushi, frame-grilled crab, crab sushi, crab tempura, crab salad, crab soup, and crab flavored rice with crab meat.  You gotta be crab-lover to eat this dinner…

Crab season is winter, and the areas near Japan Sea, like Ishikawa prefecture, is famous for crabbing.  My family used to come to Fukui prefecture (next to Ishikawa) every winter to enjoy crab when I was a kid.

The food was delish!  We were so full and couldn’t move our bodies after eating these crabs…

In the morning, we were woken up with these breakfast.

A typical Japanese breakfast – rice, miso soup, some condiments and grilled fish…

We grilled our fish on charcoals..  There was squid sashimi, some cooked vegetables with dashi broth, pickles and Onsen Tamago.  Onsen Tamago is half-cooked egg by been immersed in natural, hot Onsen water.  It’s eaten with soy sauce and mirin based sauce.  Those 6 condiments are mentaiko, nori (seaweed paste), grilled salmon flakes, chirimen-jako (seasoned tiny fishes), walnut miso, and seasoned dry shellfish meat.

My dad and I finished the meal with Onsen coffee (brewed with Onsen water).

You can imagine how full we were!  So many seafood in 2 days….  I wonder how come Australian people don’t eat seafood as much as we (Japanese) do, we both live in island county.

Yamashiro Onsen Trip 1

My parents, brother and I went to Yamashiro Onsen in Ishikawa prefecture as 18th was my mum’s birthday, and my dad is turning to 60 (kanreki) on 27th.  We stayed there one night.

This area, Kaga, is very historical place and also famous for its natural onsen.  My family stayed in a room with private onsen. 🙂

Ryokan means traditional Japanese style inn/hotel.  The room is usually tatami-matted, and guests were expected to sleep on futon on the floor.

It was also a cold day and little raining.  We arrived this Ryokan around 2pm, and just relaxed until 6 pm – dinner time.  There’re also few more spas (onsen) inside of the Ryokan (non private) , so I went out of the room to enjoy bigger Roten-buro (outdoor onsen) at the ground floor.  Although those spas are not private, there’s no one there. 🙂  I was alone and enjoying 4 different Roten-buro by myself. ♪

The dinner and breakfast was gorgeous!!!!  I will post about the food later 🙂

This are is just 2 hours drive away from my house. The onsen (natural water) was so good, and I could feel my skin was so smooth after taking bath.  Everyone changed to Yukata (light cotton kimono) and played card game until dinner…

Hot Spa

It is really cold … yesterday morning I noticed the grass on the ground was frozen!

I’ve been having a neck pain for the last couples of week… Not only neck, actually.  I have headache, backache and dizziness too! (>0<)  My neck and shoulder have been always pretty stiff since I was a kid, and I’m used to it already, but now I really feel there is something wrong ☆ I don’t have this much pain usually…  It could be because of the cold weather, my posture, playing with computer too much, thinking too many stuff, etc etc.  I gotta relax!!

Today during the day, what I thought was to take a hot bath tonight.  I couldn’t wait!  As soon as I finished baking a cake for tomorrow delivery, I filled the bath tub with hot water.  ….but, it didn’t turn out to be as nice as I expected.  The water wasn’t hot enough (it should be around 40° or over, always!!), and the bath tub was not made for keeping the water warm!  As soon as the hot water went into the tub, it started to cool down.  The whole bathroom was kinda cold too 🙁

In Japan, bath tubs are usually made with special material that keep the water warm.  And deeper!  I could swim in the tub when I was little.  The bath tub in my house is quite shallow, and I couldn’t warm up my shoulder ..  Oh well, it is Australia here, not Japan (><)

I miss Yufuin…  (my little honeymoon trip in Yufuin, in Japan → I wrote about it here, here, here, and here. ) Oh, and Yamashiro Onsen.

Oh, by the way, I heard that there is a ryokan (Japan style hotel) in Melbourne, called “Shizuka”.  Has anyone been there before? ( I found the website here : http://www.shizuka.com.au/)  It looks nice… but I bet it’s expensive :p