Back in May, it was our anniversary so we took a weekend trip to Arima Onsen, a small spa town in the hills near Kobe. We had the idea to do some walking in the hills, but the weather had other ideas: it was rainy the whole time.
A good thing about staying in a ryokan in an onsen town is there is very little reason to leave the hotel.
The bathroom is really the star of this holiday. We spent a lot of time in the bath. Now our fantasy future home has a bathroom just like this.
When the rain died down, we went out and about in the town for a bit. There's a temple up the ridge behind town. A old man lives there, and ascends the steep hill on a tiny one-man funicular railway, powered by a lawn mower engine. Sadly, I did not photograph this.
Amina Onsen actually has two springs in the town. One is the hot spring. The other is the "tansan" spring, which is naturally fizzy and used to make the town's signature water biscuits. In theory you can get its water from this tap, but it was out of action when we were there. I guess big biscuit has drained off too much of the water.
Also, there is no need to wear your own clothes -- his and hers yukatas are provided! We actually saw people out in streets wearing their hotel yukatas but we restricted ourselves to the hotel grounds. Because otherwise it would have been too cool for passersby to survive.