11/8 Dogo Onsen

Foreigners who live in Matsuyama get three coupons that allow them to visit certain places around the city for free. One is for Dogo Onsen, one is for the ropeway up to Matsuyama Castle, and the last one is for the Saka no Ue no Kumo museum.

This day was a little bit colder than usual, so one of my classmates from Korea, Kim, asked me if I wanted to go check out Dogo Onsen. Beforehand, though, we went to a Korean restaurant on Gintengai shopping street where I tried food like toppoki. I also heard "Apateu" for the first time here.

We went to Dogo Onsen, I exchanged my coupon, and Kim and I went to rent a bath towel. We went down the hall and into the changing room. We changed our clothes around predominantly elderly men and went into the very ornately decorated men's bath. 

First we have to wash ourselves before going in, which I did, and I entered the water which was really hot. No suprise it's called a hot spring. Kim and I did something like sit for about 5 minutes then go out into the changing room to cool off and drink water, and then go back in. We did that like 3 times. Afterward we returned our towels, got dressed, and then went up to see "Botchan's room." 

I might have already explained it before, but Botchan is a famous novel that takes place in Matsuyama. This room is related to the book in some way, and as such there were many portraits and relevant information. We took some pictures, I emailed them to my Japanese professor at Sac State for fun, and we left.