Onsen!

Today I went to an onsen (public bath house) for the first time. It's actually very nice once you get over being naked in front of a bunch of equally naked strangers. The extremely hot water for the onsen is pumped in from a natural hot spring below and is filled with enough iron and magnesium to turn it a rather murky brown. The particular onsen I visited had three indoor pools of various temperatures and a lovely (though scalding) outdoor pool where you could enjoy both a hot bath and a cool breeze.

Even though the onsen was amazing, they aren't terribly popular with the youger generation, so most of the women who visited the onsen were elderly to middle-aged. (The onsen in the cities are gender segregated, though apparently very rural areas still have mixed gender ones.) The women chat with their friends while they soak, simply relaxing and enjoying a hot bath. It's an incredibly calming experience and one I definitely plan on repeating.

(No pictures with this post, for obvious reasons.)

Instead, I give you....

Engrish of the Day!

Courtesy of Hakodate Beer, home to the guriinu appuru biiru kkuteru (green apple beer cocktail), a violently green drink that tastes exactly like green apple jolly ranchers dissolved in beer.

Welcome. Our staff will soon service you shortly.

Not ungrammatical, just a hilariously unfortunate choice of words...