An Onsen Ending
Day two: 2200 to 2400 hours

We got back to our room and decided we needed to be warmed up, so we got out of our cold, damp snow clothing and put on our yukatas, padding down to the public baths. We went into our respective bathing areas. This time the bath was hopping with people- women of all ages were engaged in different stages of bath play. Mothers clucked like hens, followed about by duck like little girls, bobbing along behind them. Old ladies and young slim girls alike showered in preparation for the bath, drenching themselves in water from the bucket or using the spray faucet. Fashionable women scrubbed their hair with thick lathering shampoo to get the beauty products out of their hair. I rinsed off and popped into the water, a little shy at all the commotion. It must have been like a bath house in Rome, I thought. My image was fueled by the Greek designs around me- the thick steam in the air and the bubbling water. I sat in front of a massaging jet for a while, heating the chill out of my body. I clambered out and rinsed myself in cool water several times. Feeling adventurous, I mustered up the courage to poke my head out onto the cold, icy patio. Justin had said that earlier he had gone out into the snow on his side. It sounded like a good idea to me. I poked out there and found it to be very very cold. Two friendly and rustic ladies came up behind me to see what was out there. I think they thought maybe there was another bath. When they saw it was just cold snow they said, "Oh! So cold" and scampered away. I went back in, letting the door shut behind me. But, several hot soaks later, and after seeing another young woman going out there and pasting herself in snow, I got up the courage to dart out, rub my arms with snow (which turned out to be chunky and icy, not the soft powder I'd envisioned) and then run back into the onsen. The snow was falling out there, which lent atmosphere- and then inside, it was all hot and steamy. Such a fantastic contrast!

Ladies chatted cheerfully, gossiping with each other, and girls giggled. It was clearly a social occasion. I just sat and soaked up the energy and heat of the place. After a while it really didn't seem like everyone was stark naked, or that it mattered if they were. It was just a relaxing place to be, and something to do on vacation. I stood under one of the small waterfalls from a column and let it massage my shoulders. I popped into the sauna as well, but while it had smelled pleasantly of warm cedar earlier, now that it had a huge volume of visitors, it smelled most unpleasantly of moldy, rotting feet. I hung out until I couldn't take it anymore, took one more cool dip, followed it with a hot simmer and then went to the showers to dip myself in hot and cold water, gradually cooling myself down but still retaining that wonderfully fuzzy warm feeling. I went outside to sit and wait for Justin at a bench, under a bamboo tree arrangement. Several visitors came by and looked at me a little strangely. I don't think they were expecting to see a foreigner in a yukata sitting at their hotel in the middle of Tohoku in Winter. One man came out and smoked a cigarette. Another came with his baby boy and they smiled and waved at me. I felt like they must think me strange for lurking outside the men's onsen, but I didn't know where else to wait.

Finally Justin came out. "What took you so long?" I asked. "Oh, I was making friends."he said. "Ah… I think the men are friendlier than the women when they're naked… I didn't make any friends on my side," I said, adding, "So.. what did you talk about?" "Oh, lots of things," he said. "In English?" "No, in Japanese." I was impressed. "I think he'd had a few sake," he said. We smiled at each other and went up to the ramen shop at the base of the waterfall. We sat down in our yukata, looking at other bathers doing the same thing. I would have liked something to snack on, but there wasn't anything I could have, so we ordered hot sake instead, and drank it. I felt a warm glow inside- maybe it was the baths, maybe it was the sake, but I like to think it was from being in Japan. "I'm frightened I won't want to leave," I told Justin. "The hotel?" he asked me. "No, Japan. What if I don't get into grad school, and you don't get a job, and we are stuck in America and all we want is to be back here?" Justin hesitated. "It's not always like this," he reminded me. "I know. But… it can be," I said.

We sat there, in the yellow glow of the ramen lighting, surrounded by happy and warm vacationers and families, slurping their ramen and downing their sake. Japan can be a lonely and cold place, even when you're surrounded by people. Sometimes you feel like your tongue has been cut out, and you're just a pale, grey ghost drifting through the country. But that night, sitting in the ramen shop, I felt like my body had become completely solid and alive. I could feel the blood coursing through my veins, the sake on my tongue, and I could see Justin's brown eyes looking steadily at me. We were there together, and we were really there, and ridiculously happy about it. That night we went back to our room, and climbed into our futon mat on the tatami, and bunched the strange pillow beneath our heads, and it didn't feel strange at all. It felt like home, and it felt like the exact place we wanted to be.