Kinosaki Onsen is, of course, a town full of "onsen" (or hotsprings) as its name has declared. It's located in Northern Hyogo Prefecture which is about 2-3 hours on rapid train from Kyoto and is famous especially during winter for its onsen and crab meal. The central part of the town is only within 2-3 square kilometers (from my rough imagination). There is one small river cutting across town running in the west-east direction. Hotels and restaurants are centralized near Kinosaki Onsen train station and this river, so everything is accessable on foot.
Jill came to meet us up at Kyoto station around 10 a.m. of Saturday, January 27. We couldn't get a direct express train, so we had to take a train with one transfer at Fukuchiyama Station. The total travel time is indifference between the two types of train though.
We arrived to Kinosaki Onsen town around 1-ish, to walked along the street and grabbed late lunch. Hotel check-in was at 3 p.m. We had our reservation with "Kobayashi-ya", a 20-room size Japanese-style hotel (or Ryokan).
Our objective for the trip was to relax and enjoy bathing in natural onsen. We were planning to go around the 7 onsens and dip ourselves in the water in these two days. So once we checked in the hotel, got demonstration on how to put on kimino-set, we were ready to head out to bath.
Since it's winter time, the weather was nearly 0 degree celcius, we had to put on 3 layers of kimono set. First, the summer Yukata (if you come in the summer time, you will need only this), then a kimono and a kimono jacket.
We picked up free onsen passes from the lobby, put on ryokan's geta (Japanese style sandles), and grabbed umbrella and headed out to the furthest onsen called "Mandara-Yu".
Then, we walked over to "Kouno-yu". Very near this bathhouse, there was an onsen-egg making place where you can just drop fresh eggs in onsen water by yourself.
Our third bathhouse for the day was "Goshono-yu". It was dark already when we arrived. We love this one the most our of all onsen we went in the area. The atmosphere was really relaxing and the outdoor bath was nice.
It's then time for dinner call back at the ryokan. Our meal for today was definitely the famous Matsuba CRAB meal! Dang... I'm really not a big crab fan. Those who know why, please don't laugh!! =P We did the small type of crab meal. The set came with 1) grilled crab (or mini steak up to your choice), 2) sashimi, 3) steamed crab, 4) crab tofu, 5) crab hot pot and 6) the side dishes + rice at the end of the meal. Total crab meat is of 1 1/4 crab per person. Though it was a small size meal (meaning less amount of crab), we thought it was more than enough.
The day didn't end just with the meal. We relaxed a bit after our dinner, then continue visitting 2 more bathhouse, "Yanagi-yu", one of the smallest bathhouses in the area but with a very homy Japanese traditional atmosphere, and "Satono-yu", the newest and largest bathhouse with Romanesque decoration. Also got to peak "Jizou-yu" just to see how it looks like inside.
The first thing in the morning that we did was to wake up and dragged ourselves to bath at the last out of these 7 onsens called "Ichino-yu", which is right across the river from our ryokan.
Then we were stuffed again with breakfast set before relaxing at the foot-onsen nearby.
After checking out, we still had some time to stroll along the road, tasting some food and buying some souvenirs.
Our train departed again at 12.33 p.m. All of us had a really good time and it was strange enough we all got homesick after the trip, especially when Jill left to Osaka, P'Yai and P'JR went back to Vancouver and I came back home alone. I look forward to our next trip together (also with mom and dad) soon!
