Hakone

Today I went to Yunessun in Hakone. Hakone's a popular day trip from Tokyo. It's in the mountains and has some nice scenery. At this time of year, it's wonderful because the autumn colours are perfect.

Anyway, in Hakone we went to Yunessun, which is a hot spring theme park. Unlike traditional hot springs, you wear a bathing suit. The indoor part of the park has a kind of ancient Mediterranean theme. They had a big, hot spring spa pool, various smaller spas and hot baths, including one full of roses, one with imported salt from the Dead Sea (you float in it really easily, but it stung my skin), a hot spring outdoor waterslide, a rose-scented spa and a traditional Roman bath.

They also had 'doctor fish', those same fish I got my feet eaten by in Oedo Onsen Monogatari. They weren't as intense as at Oedo though. Fewer fish, and more people. But, included in the entrance fee. ^_^

The outdoor part of the onsen was really cool. They had all these 'flavoured' hot springs. So you could go and bathe in coffee, red wine, green tea, sake, etc. The red wine spring was really pink! A few times each day they come and dump more coffee/wine/etc in the bath. We got splashed by coffee when they replaced that one. Fortunately, it wasn't especially crowded, and the autumn leaves surrounding us outdoors were really nice.

It was really quite cold - the maximum today was 13, and it was probably around 10 in the late afternoon - so we kind of moved from hot spring to hot spring very fast! There were also various hot spring waterfalls, and a charcoal

The park used the same 'wristband' system as Oedo. You get an electronic wristband when you enter, which can be scanned if you want to buy food etc within the park. That way you don't have to carry anything around with you.

It was good fun, and it was nice to see Hakone again, on better terms this time. The bus ride up to the park was really stunning.