Onsen tamago

There's a little hut in the middle of the hot spring river here, and it houses the Tsubo-yu, the only UNESCO listed bathhouse in the world. It fits one or two people, the water is up to 91 degrees and purportedly changes colour up to seven times a day, and there are no reservations, it's first in best (un)dressed for a 30 minute session. Imagine the glee when we managed to get in there within an hour.

Such a treat for our first onsen experience to be together and private given its usually gender segregated and public. It was crazy hot but there was a cold tap which helped bring things down a bit, although it was continually being topped up through spring obviously. We emerged feeling fresh as anything, albeit with my silver rings tarnished as I stupidly forgot to remove them. I'm sure we can remedy that, and it's probably a fair trade to be diabetes free for the rest of our days.

Bang on 3pm, we checked into our incredibly located accommodation (50m away) and then headed down to the canal to rest feet in the scalding water. One of the three food places in town sells bags of raw eggs, sweet potatoes and other steam/boil friendly foods to cook in the onsen, and a sweet girl came and offered us some she'd boiled, acknowledging she wasn't really up to eating six eggs but wanted to do it for fun. We thought we could taste the health. If not the sulfur.Read more