Honkan

As i woke up i could still feel the bikeride from yesterday in my legs. But since it was raining i had a good excuse to take it easy today. I looked online for nice local places to visit and found Ishite-ji, one of the 88 temples on the Shikoku pelgrim trail. This one was known for it's somewhat unusual secondary temple grounds. This temple doesn't have the regular shape but instead is more like a goldcoloured dome. Surrounded by a lot of wooden buddha statues. The secondary grounds can be reached trough a cave. It's a truly spectacular sight. I actually took a wrong turn again and got to see the secondary temple grounds first. It was really quiet and serene and i could make some nice pictures without people in the way. I went through the 200 meter long cave and entered the main temple grounds. It was a relatively small temple grounds but it was filled with different temples and shrines. There were dozens of pelgrims in their special clothing, praying to the various temples. A truly wonderful sight and i just stood there to enjoy it for a while. As i left the temple it started to rain again and so after eating my lunch in Dogo park i went back for a long nap. I guess yesterdays bikeride was heavier than i thought. I ended up napping for more than two hours. I set the alarm but i can't even remember turning it off. It was already getting dark and so it was time go to Dogo Onsen Honkan. One of the oldest onsens, it really has this authentic feel to it. I already had seen it yesterday from the outside and it kind of reminded me like the bathhouse in "Spirited Away". (if you don't know this movie, do yourself a favour and go watch it). There were several options for bathing and i chose the one with both the baths and a tour of the royal onsen. The onsens consists of a maze of onsens and it took me a while to find out the workings of this particular onsen. A little help from the tea ladies got me on track and soon i was washing up for the baths and entering the onsens. As i finished bathing i put on my yukata and got to the rest/cooling down rooms for a cup op sencha and some rice cookies, while enjoying the view from the onsen over all the other tourists taking pictures of the building. I changed into my normal clothing and was lead around the royal onsen. This bath, intended for the emperor and his family has only been used 7 times in the last 100 years. I even got a tour of the royal toilet, a squatting toilet that has never been used so far. It's made from laquered wood and the floor is covered in tatami mats, quite unusual for a toilet. I gues it's a royal thing. ;-)
I left the onsen and got some nice ramen at the adjacent arcade. I still can't believe how much ramen you get for this price and how absolutely delicious it is. Back to the onsen for an early sleep as i would get up at 5 o'clock to get the ferry to Beppu.Read more