July 3, 2010

Today was probably the most relaxing day that I can remember. The spa was absolutely amazing! The drive there was absolutely beautiful. This place, Hakone Yunessum, was up in the mountains and so the higher we went, the more beautiful the scenery was. There were tons of mountains around and the mountains were covered with trees, which was very different from the mountains I’ve seen in Washington and stuff. Karley said it looked like something out of the movie King Kong or something, you know the jungle like parts. We went in and as soon as we got there we had to take off our shoes and go to the locker rooms. We got these little wristlets to wear all day so that we didn’t have to carry our bags around. We just scanned it all day to pay for things, open our lockers, and stuff and then paid the whole tab at the end of the day. It was really nice, because I didn’t have to worry about losing any of my things during the day. They gave us these little orange and blue like kimono kind of things to wear over our swimming suits. Its kind of funny they were kind of like ultra conservative when half of the hole place was no clothing. Oh yeah. The part we went to, Yunessum, was where swim suits were required, but the part we didn’t go to, Mori No Sun, was no clothing, just like the really old Japanese Bath houses. It was crazy amazing and relaxing. First we went through all the different baths. The coffee bath was first. It was amazing. It literally smelled like coffee because there was actual coffee in it. Next there was the waterfall bath that had all these little waterfalls coming down. All the water in everything was super hot because it was at a natural hot spring. So cool. Even the water pouring down from these baths was super hot. Then we went to the wine bath, which had actual wine in it. So bomb. Although out of all the baths we went to, I’m pretty sure this one was the least hot. Which was very disappointing since it smelt amazing. At one point the wine bath got really really crowded and we couldn’t figure out why. Then suddenly a guy who worked there took these huge bottles of wine and started pouring them all over everyone and refilling the water with it. So cool!!!!!!!!! Then next was the green tea bath. I think that one was my favorite. It smelt amazing and it was really warm. The sake bath was really cool too. I actually tried sake today as well. It is rice wine, which is white, but Juanita and I decided it tasted like a really bold red wine. We walked further up this path, and then there was a charcoal bath, a sulfur rock bath. Inside near the water slides was a couple of other awesome baths. One had water or something imported from the dead sea, and so it was super salty and dense. It was crazy. It was impossible to sit down or like stay on the bottom of it because of the density. You just floated all the time. So cool. I guess it was supposed to help rid the body of toxins or something. There was also this little bath that had tiny fish in it that you stuck in your feet and they ate the dead skin off of it. It was really hard to get used to, because the feeling was somewhere in-between tickling and sucking by the fish. I loved being in the hot water all day. It was so incredibly relaxing. I would have loved to stay there all the time. I was so tired from all the relaxing that on the drive home I slept for like an hour out of the two hour drive. They had water slides too. There were only three of them, but they were really fun. I loved that even that type of stuff was really warm since it was at the hot springs. We’ve been back since like six thirty, but I am still not done writing my blog. Been eating, watching more Nip Tuck with the group and messaging online. So tired though. The fourth of July tomorrow is going to be amazing. The base is going all out for it, and the fireworks show will be great.