onsen town or desert town...

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Yufuin onsen was voted "female's favorite onsen" in Japan. I can definitely see why! The town is quite small it doesn't take more than half a day to go around. Whats impressing was, there were so many sweets shops. Oh maybe that's why its so popular among females.

My top 3 food from Yufu -

1) cheese cake - so smooth and eggy. Just the way I like it.

2) beef croquette - words can't describe how good this is. Just gotta try it!

3) tofu pudding - fresh and soft. yummmmm.

Ok here comes my first onsen experience. The place we stayed at is called Yadoya Oohashi (http://yufunoirodori-oohashi.jp/). It's basically what you see on their website but BETTER. All rooms come with outdoor onsen so you can enjoy onsen with your partner in your private garden. How good does that sound?

I don't know if it's because we were obviously foreigners, they gave us a long talk on instructions on how to use the onsen. It is a rather long process. We need to put our clothes into a basket and wash hair and body throughly before entering the onsen. Apparently it is ok to take a small towel with you into the water but most of people go in there naked.

It was such a private experience. The garden was built in such a way that nobody can see or hear anything from outside. There was even a shelter above me. We followed the Japanese way - 1 bath in the morning, 1 bath before dinner and 1 bath before bed time. Because our living room was small, we could even watch the TV from the outdoor onsen. Life is gooood.

Now this is something completely irrelevant. The TV program I watched on that night was interesting. It is a talk show with guests from 3 countries - Japan, Korea and China. You may know that these 3 countries are not exactly friendly with each other because of what happened in the past. Many Japanese see China as a big threat due to its economic growth. Korean pop bands are getting increasing popularity in Japan and there have been arguments about restricting their time on TV. Books about China and Korea are always ranked highly in book stores. I find it impressing that they can have a friendly show like this without getting political.

One of the topics on the show was - which country does the best tofu dish? Japanese tofu represents the natural flavour of soy. Chinese tofu is a mix of flavours. Korean tofu is soaked in a spicy soup full of seafood. A very tough one for me to choose...

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