Week 6: Stay in a Japanese Hotel

We Play Songs We Like are awesome. So awesome, in fact, that we decided that we needed to reward our awesomeness with a weekend away. An awesome weekend away.

A few weeks beforehand, I had been idly researching things to do in Hokkaido, when I came across a small onsen town called Jozankei, nestled snug in the mountains just south of Sapporo. It was beautiful, tiny, and it gave me the opportunity to get naked and sit in hot water looking at the stars. I was immediately interested.

I called up Jess and Tracy, asking if they would be interested in heading down for a night or two for a girls weekend. They said yes, and it just so happened that the only night we were all free was the weekend after the HAJET show, so we decided to make it a CELEBRATION!

I researched hotels and booked us in a Japanese room at the Jozankei View Hotel. It seemed to be one of the biggest hotels, but it was reasonably cheap (7000 yen for the night, including both breakfast and dinner buffets and entrance to the onsen on the top floor). Oh, and did I mention that our hotel HAD A WATER PARK IN THE BASEMENT? No? Well, our hotel had a water park in the basement!

So one fine Friday afternoon, we got off work early, picked up our bags and set out on a road trip to remember. I had decided not to bring my smartphone with me so I could be fully immersed in the moment and get away from my addiction to technology for a bit. This was much to the annoyance of Jessica, who had been counting on using my GPS to get there.

“Don’t worry!” I said confidently, “We’ll totally be able to get there following these instructions i haphazardly wrote down on a little piece of pink paper without any maps or anything!”

Jessica was not convinced, but I was bound, set and determined, so we hopped in the car GPS-less to pick up Tracy.

“Okay, don’t worry, I know the turn is here somewhere... Have we gone 4.52 kilometres yet?!” I asked, my own judgement starting to falter as we got to the outskirts of Sapporo.

“I don’t know, you were supposed to have this covered! I think we have!” Jessica said, starting to get testy. Getting lost in city traffic is not her favourite pastime, and I can’t say I blame her. Seriously Jess, thanks for putting up with my crazy. :D

Eventually, after I finally got us back on track, which I am quite proud of myself for, we ended up at Jozankei. It’s a tiny tiny town with only one main road, so even without a map, it wasn’t hard to figure out which hotel was ours. It was the giant-ass hotel at the end of the road, smack in the middle of the town.

The town itself was absolutely gorgeous, cradled in snow-capped mountains and trees, with nothing to spoil the sight whatsoever. Even the big hotel didn’t seem to look out of place, it converged with the nature somewhat.

Anyway, so we checked in and brought all our stuff up to our rooms, where we were confronted with the beautiful sight of a traditional Japanese room.

As I mentioned that this was the one new thing I did all week, I will focus on it for a bit. Japanese hotel rooms are slightly different than normal hotel rooms. They are almost always tatami rooms, and they do not have beds. Instead, there is just a small table and a place for tea, where you sit seiza and drink your tea and do other Japanese things (I don’t presume to know what Japanese people do in the comfort of their own hotel rooms). Later on, the hotel/ryokan employees come in and lay out your futon for you so you return after dinner to your room all set up for sleep. These are on the floor, and they are harder than hotel beds normally are (obviously), but they are still quite comfortable. 

So yes. We set our stuff down, and then immediately changed into our bathing suits to head downstairs to go to the WATER PARK IN THE BASEMENT. Yes. That necessitates caps lock. Every single time.

The water park was relatively unexciting as far as water parks go, but we were so happy because it was free and it was A WATER PARK IN THE BASEMENT. We spent our time switching between hot and cold pools, waiting for the wave pool to turn on, going down the tiny water slides, and watching young Japanese guys do flips off the pool, trying to impress us. We even gave them scores. They were super amused. I think. I don’t think their girlfriends were though.

After that, we went upstairs clad in our wonderful hotel yukatas, and changed out of our bathing suits in time to go to the buffet dinner. It was varied, but surprisingly delicious. The ballroom was giant, like something out of a film. I felt like it was way too classy for the people in it, who were mostly Japanese families clad only in their robes.

“See?” Jessica said to me as we got our food, “I told you it was okay to wear your yukata to dinner!”


So I was wrong. Oh well. We made up for it by having a lovely meal, then returning to our rooms to get ready to go to the one main attraction of the hotel, the rooftop onsen. We put our yukatas back on and walked to the gorgeously decorated elevators, taking them all the way to the top floor. 

We undressed, and all of a sudden we were soaking our body in 45 degree water, looking out on the night scene of Jozankei through full glass windows. I’m sure it would have been more stunning during the day, because all we could see were a few lights, but it was pretty nonetheless. As it turned out, it was the girls turn to use the rooftop pool, so we went up and out, and got to see the stars in a way I never had before. It was definitely an experience to remember.

After THAT (I know, right could it possibly get any better?), we wanted to sing karaoke in our yukatas, but the only karaoke bar in the hotel had mandatory nomihoudai, so since we weren’t willing to fork up 4,000 yen, we passed.

Instead, we came across the tiny arcade in the hotel (seriously, this place was gigantic), so we took some purikura photos instead. I’m trying to figure out how to scan them, but I’m having trouble so I might just take a picture of them instead. Trust me, they were adorable.

Photos in hand, we went back up to our hotel room, bought beer from a vending machine and proceeded to serenade ourselves with Tracy’s guitar and give each other massages on our futons. Sexy times, I tell you.

We fell asleep content and woke up in time for the morning breakfast buffet, which was similar to the evening buffet except it had a few more breakfast foods and it wasn’t dark outside. We then checked out of our hotel, and spent some time enjoying the town. We soaked our feet in a natural foot bath, found a frozen waterfall, and slid down a hill on our butts and lived to tell the tale.

We drove back the next day with our hearts content and our minds full of fond memories. If you ever have the chance to go to Jozankei, I highly recommend it. The place was fairly cheap, and really well-located. We definitely got our money’s worth. :D