Arima Onsen - Japanese bath

Ohayou,

This post will be about Arima onsen. The last weekend before school started my parents and I went to Arima Onsen which is located outside of Kobe. Arima Onsen is one of Japan's most famous onsen. For you who don´t know what onsen is, it´s basically, a hot bath with water from the mountains (het källa). So kind of like a spa but with natural water. It is something that should be on your bucket list if you plan to visit Japan!

It took us around 1 hour with a bus ( if I remember it right) to get there from Osaka. We had booked a room at a Ryokan, kind of a traditional Japanese hotel/inn. I can really recommend staying at a Ryokan if you are visiting an Onsen, it´s an experience! You get served 24/7 room service included in the price. However, we didn´t have the drinks included, except the tea and water. You get served the dinner at the room, they make the beds for you, we even got to select which pillow we wanted out of, 8 different options haha, the first time that ever happened. Some rooms even have their own onsen, but those are super pricey.

When we arrived at Arima, the hotel came and picked us up and took us to the hotel. After or check-in we got shown to our room by a woman. She gave us our traditional yukatas and showed us how to wear them and checked if the size was right. We got served tea and she asked if we would like something else to drink. It was around 26 C outside so of course we "suktade" for some more colder options. The rest of the afternoon and evening we spent in the hot bath area until it was time for dinner. We got served five dishes, unfortunately, the food didn´t taste so much. However, the sashimi and the meat was in a really high class and meccha oishii (very tasty). After our dinner the women who had served us the whole day came and made our beds, we had booked a Japanese room so of course, we slept on mattresses who was brought out on the tatami mats on the floor.

The next day we started with an early breakfast, gosh it was so much food. We got served two layers of small, traditional Japanese dishes. One funny thing was that I think we were the only foreigners in the hotel haha. After breakfast, we took our last bath in the onsen. This time they had changed the place of the onsen, apparently, we got to take a bath where the men took a bath the other night. I think they did this because of one of the onsen had three different baths outside, while the other one only had one.

After our checkout, we went out to explore the "village" of Arima. We found our way to a temple after climbing a stair with a lot of steps. We also went to a waterfall. It was a beautiful day and there were so few people going around, you wouldn't think that this place is popular. But I think it was mostly because it was not high season for onsen, but I would say you can enjoy onsen all year round and if you want fewer people, visit right before summer or right after!😄

First view of Arima Onsen

Our living/dinner/sleeping room

Tea in the making :3

Mom is relaxing

Some traditional sweets from Kyoto that I had bought the other day, super delicious, they have all different kinds of flavors. These two had peach and banana flavor.