Blrgh…
Travel always brings a certain pressure of wantiong to do so many things at once but also wanting to do things entirely at my own pace for a change. Today’s reading feels like a reflection of that internal push and pull.
I woke up at like 1AM with an upset stomach.
The problem was that it was Mysterious Upset Stomach where, because I woke up mid-pain rather than feeling it from the start I didn’t know if it was hunger or cramps or acid reflux or what so I begrudgingly dragged myself out of bed.
I addressed each possibility in order and when I reached the hunger one I figured I shoud check the conbini or something.
…but alas the door’s closed. I guess this is One Of Those kinds of ryokan.
I fell asleep again and before I knew it it was 10AM, then midday…
I kinda wanted to go out and do stuff, but I was also applying my own logic of “if you’re this tired just stay in bed, that’s what vacations are for”.
I ultimately went out because this ryokan is close to both the main street and the train station and between that and the noise from the staff cleaning up nearby rooms I was like “FINE I’LL GET UP SHUT UP”.
I went out just in time to get a burger at a place I knew. I arrived at just the right time too since it immediately became packed.
My first goal of the day was seeing the souvenir shops in this part of the area on a kinda preliminary basis, especially since they close very early. Specifically the chunk near the station tends to close by 5PM (save a couple of restaurants) while the one deeper in with more onsen closes later at around 8 or 10PM.
I walked a bit and ended up using up a whole film roll from the Pentax in the process. Lots of the photos I’ve taken this trip have been me testing the film cameras so the results won’t show for a bit. But I did end up bringing it out earlier today.
After the roll finished I actually walked a bit more and saw an interesting path…
Nope nope nope nope nope nope nopenopenopenope.
If I spend my whole life never having a bear encounter it’ll be a life well lived and probably longer than with my chances if I did.
Having finished the roll I walked back to my room, I prepped Aurora to go out, and packed my Canon. I wanted to take her to the spot I went to last night but, y’know, in the day.
Weather was kinda chilly today and the forecast looked fine, just slightly overcast.
Some walking later I make it to where I wanted and turns out I wasn’t wrong and there was still the spot I was looking for yesterday, it’s just that in the dark I walked slower and didn’t dare walk further.
The shoot was deliberately simple, more of a general warmup using a tried and proven pose of hers. Aurora’s face has this very curious quality where the angle changes her expression quite a bit and I gotta aim low to get a more youthful expression out of her.
It was also a bit of a throwback to a pic I took of Ichigo here back in 2022.
Feeling satisfied with this, I started making my way back and a consideration reared its head in my brain…
I gotta shower or bathe or something.
I wasn’t in a bad state, and I showered right before I left yesterday so it could’ve been worse, but the main factor I was bouncing around in my head was the mental toll. For context: The hotel I’m staying in doesn’t have showers inside the rooms because the expectation is that you’ll use the public baths.
I don’t mind public onsen on principle, by which I mean that I don’t care about the bathing with strangers part, but just like peeing somewhere that’s not a bathroom stall, if given the option I’ll avoid it.
Thankfully, this hotel has a private onsen, I just had to make a reservation. So after doing that I walked for a little bit.
I love how this place looks at night so much. I did notice that the pics were feeling a tad more difficult than they should and that’s when I remembered I had a polarized filter on. See if you can guess in which pic I took the filter off.
I headed back before going too far away and took the bath in peace.
I didn’t stay super long in the bath. I overheat really fast… but sweat like a motherfucker and if I don’t have sweating as a mechanism available then my tolerance for heat becomes even less.
But even if I only stayed inside the big bath for like 8 minutes-ish those were some great 8 minutes.
After that it was still a good hour so I went to get dinner and there was one place I had my eye on.
Okay there were TWO places I had my eye on but I already had a burger today so the Tupac and Biggie restaurant will have to wait.
This place caught my eye because Mikuni is the Hankyu station near my place. It was kinda lonely aside from some foreigners outside chillin’ with some beers and talking in Spanish (which is always a surprise because my brain is used by now to not encountering stuff I’m native to).
I had a hamburg steak of Tajima beef and a Lemon Sour. My only real complaint is the Lemon Sour because it was more bitter than I expected, kinda like a lemon seed cut in half spread in it or something. The steak was great though.
I walked for a bit to the nearby Lawson to recharge my Paypay account at their ATM and on the way I had a very fortuitous encounter.
A heron on the water. They were so still that for a moment I thought they were a prop or something but the moment I took some steps they tracked me, but they didn’t seem wary, it was almost like they were posing for the camera.
I thanked it and continued on my way.
Encounters with Herons are always so… mystical. One I always remember was in Hakone where I explored a temple and right as I cross the Torii I catch a big white bird flying out of sight.
I was kinda disappointed because I didn’t clock in that it was a heron and I thought it was the signature Kounotori Stork of the area. It was a very “Aw I only had nine million instead of ten million” sort of bummer, though.
Chatting about that with N later, she pointed out that the heron reminded her of Lugia and… yeah, not only do they have kinda similar colors and the plumage near the eyes, but apparently herons are associated with water, and the way their feathers glisten with water is associated with the souls of the dead. Which would make sense for something that serves as the basis for the water counterpart to a fire bird associated with life.
N also commented that storks feel fake because they’re basically American Youkai and I cannot stop thinking about that association specifically.
I returned to the ryokan ready to call it a night and it was then that I noticed they had a sign talking about how they set an 11PM curfew “in cooperation with the police department”. So that explains why the door was locked.