I woke up suitably hungover and very glad I packed my bag the night before. I put on some shades to hide the bags under my eyes and made my way to Haneda Airport. It took a surprisingly short amount of time and I left ridiculously early in case I ran into any problems, which I almost did. I went to the right terminal but went to the wrong end and couldn't find my flight. After a mini heart attack I spoke to the woman at the desk who said I just go straight to security. I had received an email with a bar code in it and this was how I was to check in? I simply showed the picture of it on my phone over this machine and bam, I was checked in. So bizarre. I almost didn't trust it. When I was through security I decided to get some brunch so found somewhere that did toast. It took them about 20 minutes to bring me a slice of toast and a coffee. I didn't even ask for coffee. The barista was cute so I let him off and didn't complain… this time.
I boarded my flight, the only white boy once again and most of the safety instructions were in Japanese so if I crashed i'd be facked. The flight took hardly any time and soon we were descending into Osaka. It was amazing to land in an Airport that wasn't miles from the centre because I got to fly past most of the city! Was so beautiful! I landed and I was quickly through security and had no bags to collect. I met Tak at the arrivals and we headed to somewhere nearby for lunch! We had some amazing sushi and I even had some beer with my lunch to get me going. We bought some more booze for the bus journey and then headed to catch out coach. We caught up majorly on the 1hr journey to Arima, a small town up in the mountains.
When we arrived a member of staff from the Onsen came to pick us up! Literally everyone we saw in the town were old people. We got to our wee onsen hotel and had to take our shoes off straight away and put on slippers. After getting to our room, a woman came to drink some green tea with us and explain to us the schedule for the evening. After settling in we went to the public onsen, I had to get bollock naked in front of complete strangers (strangely didn't find it that difficult) and bathe in different hot springs. One was full of iron and tasted like blood and the other was acidic. It was rather relaxing, if not for all the naked old Japanese men. After our bath we went to have our delicious dinner of shabu shabu and Kobe beef steaks. Kobe was only 20 minutes away by drive after all. The food was absolutely amazing and I almost exploded from how nice it was. Tak cracked out the plum wine after dinner and we took some down with us at our 10pm private onsen. It was just like hiring a jacuzzi really, so relaxing. After dinner Tak arranged for us to get a massage. I was hoping to get a fucking stunning muscly asian man but instead I got a fat middle aged woman. After my massage I literally fell right asleep! Was so nice to relax for once!
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