Don had back-to-back business trips in Asia – Taipei one week, Seoul the next – with a long weekend in between. Laura met him at at Kansai Airport, where they rented a car and headed to a hot springs inn deep in the Kii Mountains of Wakayama Prefecture. Along the way they stopped in Koyasan, a temple town that is the center of Shingon Buddhism for some sightseeing in the rain.
The inn was in the village of Ryujin, where the hot springs is renowned as on of the “Three Beautiful Woman Hot Springs of Japan”. The water contained lots of dissolved solids which left a smooth feeling to the skin. There were both indoor baths (men and women’s) and outside (mixed). The later required a strategically placed towel to enter.
They hiked along portions of the Kumano Kodo, an old pilgrimage route between shrines in the mountains, and stopped at several along the way, including the largest, Kumano Hongu Taisha.
On the way back to the airport, they drove along the coast in search of Pokemon cards for Kade, which are apparently as hard to find in Japan as they are in the US. They did manage to find a few boxes at a discount electronics store in the little town of Gobo. Less luck with the Green Tea donuts at Starbucks, sadly.
