Having a bath in Matsuyama - our very own Spirited Away experience

Trip Diary Day 17 - 14 April 2019

Matsuyama

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We had a huge day planned. Dogo onsen for a long soak in a bath and then not much at all. We tossed around the idea of visiting the castle but if I was a betting man I wouldn’t be putting a dollar on that. The castle is on a large hill in the centre of town and dominates the skyline. It is quite impressive and one of the dozen or so original feudal castles left in Japan. So not a huge day at all really.

Three Fish Coffee

We rose at 8 so we could get out early for coffee before we went to Dogo Onsen for the bath. We walked to Three Fish Coffee. They had excellent great value breakfast sets. Coffee and toast or coffee and croque monsieur for about 650 yen each. We had two coffee and toast sets and one coffee and croque monsieur set. 2060 yen ($24AUD). Each set also came with a serve of yoghurt and salad. Don’t worry, not a yoghurt salad. A salad in a bowl and a separate yoghurt in a bowl. The toast was my favourite toast in all the world - shokupan. Three Fish roast their own beans so the coffee was perfect. It was all very very good. We expected to return the next day at 9am when they open (before we leave Matsuyama).

Then it was a 10 minute walk to catch the tram to Dogo Onsen. 160 yen for adults and 80 for kids. It started to rain.

A Haiku

Three Fish Coffee start
Shokupan toast and butter
Happy coffee buzz

Dogo Onsen

14 minutes later we arrived in Dogo Onsen. Dogo Onsen is one of the oldest and most famous onsen towns in Japan and is only a few minutes from central Matsuyama. Dogo Onsen’s main claim to fame is Dōgo Onsen Honkan - an olden wooden bathhouse rumoured to have been inspiration for the bathhouse in Spirited Away by Hayao Miyazaki.

Chihiro in front of the bathhouse

Spirited Away, Studio Ghibli

We spent some time outside of the building trying to take photos in the rain until it was time to go in. The man and the woman at reception were a little confused about our booking. After reading the Japanese email they figured we were booked into the Annex down the street. Here is another tip kiddies - print out any reservation confirmations in Japanese just in case you fudge the booking. Google Translate is good but it does have its limitations. Many places, restaurants, ryokans, bath houses in Japan, often don’t the option to make reservations in English. We write out the a booking request as simply as possible and use Google Translate translate the request into Japanese. I generally email the request in both English and Japanese. Sometimes they reply in English but more often they only reply in Japanese. Print out the the confirmation in Japanese as well as your translated version.

So we were at Dōgo Onsen Honkan, the main building. Where we needed to go, and for where we made out reservation apparently was Asuka-no-yu, the annex.

We wandered down through the adjacent shopping arcade to the new building. Asuka-no-yu Annex has only been around since 2017 whereas the old building was constructed in 1894. The new building is more modern looking than the old but it still looked like a grand temple to bathing.

We paid 6490 yen (about $70AUD) for a 90 minute private onsen experience. We were taken upstairs to the private bath, given towels, yukatas, bags and keys and told what we had to do. We had to go down to the public bath to wash and soap up first. Protocol says you have to be clean before entering the main onsen. If you struggle with being naked with other people you may not like that part. The public baths are segregated by sex though. Back up in our private family bathroom we took to the water. It was a big granite bath set in a traditional wooden room. This particular bath is a reproduction of a bath in the main building that is for the exclusive use of the Emperor. We’re the Royal Family. Well, for 90 minutes. It was beautiful and hot. Georgia wasn’t feeling well so she couldn’t take the heat for very long. The water was probably around 40 degrees C.

After our bath we hit the intercom and the attendant returned with mochi, wagashi and green tea. Snacks and tea were part of the deal. I had weighed myself on a scale in the public bathroom and found I had dropped almost 5 kg during the 17 days we’d been in Japan so far. Obviously you’ve noticed I hadn’t been moderating my diet. I think I was even snacking more than at home what with the creme caramel puddings every day and what not. Weight loss for me happens every time we visit Japan. Who knows why it happens? Change in gut bacteria perhaps? If I ever write a diet book it will only have one page - visit Japan, eat everything, lose weight. The end.

A Haiku

Dogo Onsen bath
Like the emperors we soak
have to leave too hot

Dogo-no-Machiya cafe

We went outside take photos in the courtyard and then went into the shopping arcade we’d passed through earlier. We bought a souvenir cake called Taruto. Taruto cake is a sponge cake roll stuffed with red bean paste. It is one of the local sweet specialties. The other is a type of mochi or dango called Botchan Dango.

In the shopping arcade we found a burger shop - Dogo-no-Machiya cafe - and had an awesome burger and a couple of fantastic iced coffees with cream and ice cream. The burger, the Yunomachi Burger, came with an egg and teriyaki sauce. Brandy had lemon squash. All up it came to 2430 yen ($28AUD). Lovely interior. All dark wood and tastefully decorated. There was gorgeous garden out the back which made the stroll to the toilet a pleasant diversion.

We had to drop into Lawson for regular chicken karaage (fried chicken) and water for Brandon. Sometimes that kid just won’t have anything on the menu when we eat out but at least he will eat Lawson fried chicken. I’m rather partial to it myself.

A random older lady gave Georgia and Brandon a bag with 2 oranges. Japanese people sure are generous. Oranges are sometimes given as a welcome gift in this region. Ehime, the prefecture Matsuyama is in, is sometimes called the Orange Kingdom. Ehime is famous for citrus production. We’ve been gifted fruit before. Apples and oranges mostly. They can sometimes be quite expensive compared to home so we very much appreciate the gesture.

It was raining heavily by then so we caught the no. 5 tram back to the hotel. Then we did more washing.

Nikubarudakara Matsuyama Nibancho, Okaido

Georgia was still not feeling very well so rested and slept on her futon for a couple of hours. By about 6.30 Mummy and Daddy were hungry again. We checked out a couple of very local places but they were closed so we caught the trusty no. 5 tram to Okaido, 3 stops away, to go to a steakhouse. Okaido is a huge long undercover pedestrian only shopping arcades. Usually called something machi in other cities. Most of the big towns have at least one big shopping arcade like Okaido. Nikubarudakara Matsuyama Nibancho was a kind of Spanish meets Japanese steak place. We had charcuterie plate for 990 yen, a Japanese beef steak for 990 yen, rib eye steak for 1490 yen, roasted beef tongue Korean “yukke” style for 890, pickles for 390, fries with Parmesan cheese for 490, a ginger ale for 350 yen and an Asahi super dry for 500 yen. 6577 yen ($70AUD) all up. The rib eye was wagyu. So fatty, so delicious. The whole meal was very good so I hate to be the bearer of bad news but apparently the restaurant has closed. I don’t know if it had anything to do with the Covid-19 situation in 2020 or not.

It wasn’t far back to the hotel but nobody wanted to walk so we went home by taxi. The taxi was 580 yen. The rain had finally stopped.

I went to Family Mart for biscuits, milk and bubble water - the usual evening supplies. Georgia didn’t eat because she was too unwell and went straight to bed. Brandy did eat - all the chips and pickles - and then he played games on his computer for a while. He was tired and cranky but he gave us both a big hug when he went to bed. He got up to do it in fact. God he is adorable sometimes. Except when he wants a toy or Gachapon. The he goes on and on and on...

We had to be up early the following morning to drive to Yawatahama and the ferry to Kyushu. Yawatahama is about one and half hour’s drive from Matsuyama. The Three Fish Cafe coffee shop opens at 9 so we expected to leave Mystays Hotel Matsuyama at about 8.30AM. The one time we get a 11 am check out we have to leave early. So we were going to grab the car from the vending machine parking tower and drive to coffee and breakfast.

Map of all the places we visited in Matsuyama

Matsuyama

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