Never was a Valley so well named as Hidden Valley!

Today was our first real adventure! And what a day we had! Amidst the rain forecast (it is raining season after all) we drove 1 hour south of Manila to the town of Alaminos Batangas.

On our way there, we saw Banana farms, Coconut farms and we even saw a monkey road kill! Was I ever glad to be wearing a good bras! As I had found out in my first trip to the Philippines. When riding in car outside of the city of Manila, you often feel like you are sitting in an old wooden roller coaster! Even though it was suppose to be just about an hour away. It took us close to 2 hours to find Hidden Valley. Because Hidden Valley truly is hidden! 

We had to stop and ask our way around multiple times. We also stopped for some white corn. I will open a funny parentheses here... Everything is sweeter in the Philippines (mango... pineapple... avocado...)  Well... not corn! Our good old Peaches n' cream corn back home is so much sweeter. White corn is actually pretty tasteless.

So we finally found Hidden Valley. Because it is an actual hot spring resort, we registered for a day pass (about 50$ per person). The pass is good for a whole day and includes your lunch and dinner at the restaurant. Since it was already lunch time, we headed straight to eat! It was a buffet style Filipinos food buffet. Everything was delicious. There was also live music going from table to table. We got serenaded by a great rendition of Justin Beaver's Baby Baby. Hudson LOVED it and spent her whole time listening to the music.

As soon as we were done lunch, Tristan, Hudson and I headed out on a hike to the Hidden water fall. It took us about 35 minutes on a bamboo bridge path to reach the waterfall deep in the valley. Although the fall in itself is not the most amazing sight. The actual hike was great! We saw lots of different lizard and heard really cool bird signing. 

 

After visiting the fall, we headed back to the hot spring area and swam for the whole afternoon. I will let the pictures talk for themself!    

好きやねん 温泉 と カラオケ

After 7 very long days, and since the rain was still in the forecast, we decided on taking a day off!! That means, we spent the day at the nearby Onsen!

I love onsen! Like you would not believe it! I love them! I love them! I love them all! It makes my skin so soft. It makes my body NOT hurt! I love it!

So at the onsen, I met a couple of really lovely ladies. One of which, an old lady, fallowed me around for half the day! She was so happy to *find a canadian in Osaka*. She kept asking me if I was single since she had a son about my age.... lol

She presented me to all the ladies in attendance. As good Osaka women, they lived up to the Obachan name as they were all very noisy and nosy! So all afternoon we chatted in Japanese about Osaka, Canada... and food!!! (That's why I love Osaka...) They kept asking me where in Japan the food was the best... I made them really happy when I said Osaka!

They also were asking me lots of questions about our dear-canadian-beautiful-figure skater Joannie Rochette! They kept saying how amazing she was! How great she was for having competed even after her mother had passes away.

So that's how my day went... in the evening, we spent all night watching different TV show. We watched Space Shower ranking (NYC was first!! lol) then we watched VS. Arashi which is always so funny.
The next day, the rain was still pouring down! But lucky us, we didn't get any snow like Saitama and Gunma did! So we went a few station down the street and headed to Shidax for 8 hours of Karaoke!!!!! Here during the day, you can buy free time Karaoke. That means it is a set price and you stay how long you want. So we sang for 6 hours straight before we had to start singing the same songs again. All this without the romanji lyrics!! I have to say, we really came along a long way since our first time 3 years ago.
We ended the night by working on our concert Uchiwa for Yoko's concert in Tokyo next week!!! First row baby!!!

O is for ONSEN!

What to do on a gray, rainy cold day...

The onsen my dear!!

You can never go wrong with a day at the onsen. And best of all turns out there is a really nice one just a 10 minutes walk away from where we are staying! Well it is not a traditional Onsen, more like a public bath but it has all the fun stuff including the slat scrub and the electrify water bath. We spent all morning there and in the afternoon watched random japanese TV.
Now on another note, today we are starting our 7 days mini-trip project called Yoshitsune's footstep! First stop is Kyoto and Fushimi Inari. Tomorrow will be Hiroshima and Miyajima.

Mizunuma 5 étoiles *****

This morning, I got up a bit later than I wanted to. (8:30 am) yes, even on holiday, I like to get up early. Once more I put aside my plans to go to Nikko and started looking for an Onsen not to far from Ota. I couldn’t find anything interesting until I stumbled on some old American man’s blog. One word: Mizunuma. Less than 1 hour away from Oizumi… and even better, the Onsen is IN the train station… so no need to wonder around town trying to find it.

I was set… At 10:30 I was all packed and ready to go to Mizunuma. Although I had really liked my trip to Oigami, the onsen over there was disappointing so I was a bit apprehensive about going to Mizunuma. Oigami was suppose to be one of the best in Japan. Mizunuma is not known at all. I couldn’t find any reviews nor pictures… So blindly, I jumped on the train and kept my fingers cross that the place still existed and was open on a week day!!

The train ride was easy and required no line change from Oizumi. I got off at Aioi station and jumped on the mountain street car. What an amazing ride through bamboo forest up the mountain along an impressive canyon!!! Just the trip was worth it. Waterfall, flowers, wild birds… such a pretty sight!! I got off at Mizunuma station and as expected, stepped right into the Onsen.

The staff was a bit surprise to see me and seemed really relieved that I spoke enough Japanese to get around. I had to remind them a couple  of time to speak slower. They nicely answered all my questions through out the day ;-) So back to my arrival. They first showed me arround the whole facility.  And explain to me the different bath. Once more, this Onsen does not compare to the ones in Saitama but I must say the overall atmosphere was unbeatable. The view from the baths was simply breathtaking. The place was calm and very clean. The best part was that it only cost 500 yen for the day. (about 6 dollars)

For lunch I bought a local produce bento box for 1000 yen. It was delicious. The eating room was a traditional tatamis room and the national sumo tournament was playing on TV.

At the end of the day, my skin was so soft!!! I just can’t wait to go back. I decided to go back for my last day in Japan!!

Since Harajuku is out of the question this year, I though the Onsen will be the best departure gift to myself.

Feel free to contact me if you need more info about this Onsen in Gunma prefecture. I truly recommend it!