Roving Japan

Day 25 Photoset

First stop today was Matsuyama castle. Restored last century, this castle is in almost pristine condition. Although not nearly as big as Himeji castle, it’s still fairly big. I know that I thought it looked small as we entered town, but when you’re right next to it, it finally becomes imposing.

From the top of the main tower, we could look out over the entire city. From here, we finally could look back at the path we traveled to get here. We were both impressed. Just two days ago we were walking through the mountains that we could barely see in the distance. It’s pretty cool to look back and see how far we’ve come.

The other highlight of the castle was the full set of samurai armor available to try on. Risa and I both got dressed in full gear. It was a little heavy, but easy to move around in. I didn’t care for the face mask though. I think my nose is too big, since the mask kind of hurt when I had it on.

After the castle we took the street car to the Dogo area of town. This is where the onsen and the brewery are located. First stop? The brewery of course!

We found the small brewery a few blocks from the onsen. Called, “Dogo Brewery”, it’s fairly tiny and their tour basically involves you standing in front of the big metal containers used to brew the beer, then heading straight to the tasting room. I tried asking questions to figure out what they used to make the beer. I was hoping for a lot of local ingredients. Apparently they get almost everything from Canada or Australia. I think the yeast comes from Germany. The only local ingredient is the water.

When we got to the tasting room we were given all three of the beers they make. The pale lager, the sweet red colored beer, and their stout. The lager is what you would expect from a Japanese beer. It’s smooth and easy to drink. The red beer and the stout were a bit of a surprise. I was expecting the stout to have the texture of a stout. But all three beers were very light and easy to drink. I’d say “watery” but that’s too harsh. The tour guide said that the philosophy behind the beer is that it must be easy to drink right after you are done with the onsen. These beers aren’t marketed outside of the area, so they are almost totally focused on pleasing the onsen customers. Once I knew the philosophy of the beers, I appreciated them much more. The stout tastes like a mild stout but goes down like bud light! Easy to drink indeed!

The tour guide left and the lady at the desk came over and told us how lucky we were. The tour guide was actually the owner! Then she let us finish all three bottles and even gave us some sake and a shot of shochu. Needless to say, we were fairly tipsy and we still had to go to the onsen!

Dogo onsen is considered to be the oldest onsen in Japan. It is also featured in one of Japans most famous books, Botchan. The people at the onsen also believe that Dogo onsen was the inspiration for the bath house in the movie Spirited Away.

I have mixed feelings about the experience. The entire process is extremely complicated for an onsen. There are 4 pricing options that involve different baths, places to relax when you’re done and different snacks to eat. You find yourself being led by the staff quite a lot.

The onsen itself is quite small, but they have showers. We were disappointed that they don’t provide any soap or shampoo though. Usually when you pay more than $5 the onsen provides that stuff.

The relaxation area after the bath is a large tatami room. They bring over tea and cookies which is nice, but you aren’t allowed to lay down. This is the first onsen we’ve visited that doesn’t let you lay down afterwards. When we were finished with the tea, we went up to the top floor to look at the private rooms for the folks who paid more than us, and to look at the famous room dedicated to the novelist who wrote Botchan.

In the end, Dogo onsen is something I would only do once. It’s an amazing building, with an interesting process. But the lack of soap, and the no lay down rule are big bummers for me. I want an onsen to do one of two things (both is better). Let me get totally clean and relax, or let me feel at one with nature. Dogo onsen lets you get clean if you bring your own soap but you can’t take a nap afterwards, and it certainly isn’t the “natural” style onsen like we had in Yufuin and Kurokawa.

On our way back to the hotel, we stopped by the Botchan clock. This clock is famous for the show it puts on every hour. On the hour, the clock transforms to play music and to reveal scenes from Botchan. There was a guide standing in front of the clock who told the audience what was going on with each scene. The guide also sang us all a song! He was pretty entertaining.