As I sit here typing this on an wooden balcony with the sound of babbling water and the chirping of birds in the background, my muscles are relaxed, and I can feel the stress of my three-week sojourn through Asia melting away with each passing moment. I’m spending the night at a ryokan, a traditional Japanese inn, which is like a hybrid of a three-Michelin-star restaurant, a zen monastery, and a mountain spa.
Food and relaxation are the focus of ryokans, which originated during the Edo period as a place for weary travelers to stop and rest. Asaba Ryokan, tucked away in the mountains of the Izu Peninsula, is a bit of a trek from Tokyo, but your two-and-a-half-hour train ride will be rewarded with a day in paradise.
The Asaba family has been in the hospitality business for over five hundred years, and have been operating a ryokan at the current site, located in Shuzenji, Japan, for over three hundred years. The experience shows. From the moment you step over the threshold, you’re treated like royalty. Check-in is a sit-down affair, where you’re introduced to your chambermaid, who serves as your maid, concierge, and waitress for the duration of your stay.
The rooms here take inspiration from Zen minimalism, allowing you to focus on the panoramic views of a lush lagoon with a Noh stage floating right in the middle. In some rooms an entire wall opens to the garden, giving the illusion that you’re looking at a life-size mural that changes as the sun moves across the sky. Despite the minimalist decor, the rooms are luxuriously large (even by western standards), and each suite is divided into a sleeping area, dining area, and lounge area by sliding panels that open to turn the room into one large space. Bathrooms are fitted with deep tubs made of hinoki, which perfumes the air with the earthy aroma of cypress when filled with hot water.
But if you limit your bathing experience to your in-room tub, you’ll be missing out. Asaba, like many ryokans, is built on top of an onsen (hot-spring) that feeds several communal baths. The outdoor rotenburo (outdoor bath), lined with massive volcano hewn boulders, is the size of a small swimming pool. On one end lies a fountain-sized pool, with a steady stream of mineral-laden hot-spring water trickling into it from deep below. This gives the steaming water a chance to cool slightly before flowing into the larger pool, which keeps one end of the bath much hotter than the other.
As with most ryokans, a stay at Asaba also includes a traditional multi-course dinner and breakfast presented in-room by your chambermaid. During our fall visit, Chef Noto prepared a twelve course kaiseki menu for dinner that included seasonal and local delicacies such as red squid sashimi, kinme (a local fish) grilled table-side, grilled spiny lobster, and conger eel sushi made with freshly harvested black rice. While the presentation lacked some of the glitz of modern kaiseki meals, the chef, who has been cooking at Asaba for thirty years, stays true to the simple Zen roots of the kaiseki tradition, plating each course with graceful elegance.
After less than twenty-four hours in this sanctuary, I felt sated, relaxed and ready for my next adventure. My stay made me wonder if Ponce de León had it all wrong. Perhaps the Fountain of Youth is an onsen, nestled in the mountains of Japan.
If you decide to visit an onsen or stay at a ryokan, here are a few tips that will impress your hosts and keep you out of an embarrassing situation:
- As is the case in most Japanese homes, shoes are always removed at the sunken entryway before stepping up into the residence. A pair of house slippers are often provided, which you use in public places but typically remove at the entrance to your room before stepping up onto tatami-mat-lined floors.
- Most ryokans provide guests with a yukata (bath robe). It’s a light cotton robe that’s worn both in and out of your room at a ryokan. Many ryokan have gender segregated public baths, so it’s customary to change into a yukata in your room and wear it to the bathing area, where you disrobe completely. One thing to keep in mind is to always put the left flap over the right before tying it shut with an obi (the long sash). The only time the right flap goes over the left is during a funeral, and after bathing in the rejuvenating waters of an onsen, you’ll feel anything but dead.
- Public baths are almost always same-sex, and it’s frowned upon to enter the water wearing swimwear. If you’re especially self-conscious about being seen by others in the nude, choose off-peak times to bathe. Some ryokans provide private rooms that can be reserved upon your arrival.
- When using a Japanese bath (whether at an onsen or in someone’s home), the protocol is always to wash yourself outside the bath before entering it. This is because baths in Japan are for a relaxing soak, not to clean yourself. Public onsen baths are constantly circulating in new hot water from the hot springs below, but in private homes, the same bathwater is used by every member of the family, which is why you should always be clean before entering the water.
- When dining, never leave your chopsticks crossed or sticking out of your rice, as this symbolizes death. Passing food from one person to another using chopsticks is also taboo because at funerals, the bones of the deceased are passed in a similar manner.
Finally, if you’re worried about forgetting any of these rules, just remember the word “sumimasen” (excuse me), and all will be forgiven.
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