Gero spa is famous in Japan for its high alkaline onsens. If you mention Gero to a Japanese person, their immediate response is onsen. They even have a free, public, outdoor, mixed, nude onsen under a bridge. As you probably know, I have a difficult enough time going into male only onsens.
We started on the tourist street with all the souvenir shops just to look. We found nothing and no one. It could be due to it being aweekday, not sure. But we were told by Rocky to go into the gallery where we could make our own postcards. I went in reluctantly because I suck at art but I ended up having a lot of fun. The lady inside was 75 years old but had the most joyous smile. She couldn’t speak English and was talking a mile a minute in Japanese. We understood some but Nigel ended up showing her Rocky’s card and she called him and gaveher the scoop. She brought over a bookletof her international friends but mainly because she had a good friend from Taiwan which is where we are going to in August. She wrote down his contact info and gave it to us. So sweet!
We had a look on the walls of all the other postcards and was even more intimidated. I don’t remember the last time I picked up a paint brush. It took me awhile for me to know what
to draw but once I started, it was easy. It was nothing special but I was happy to complete something. 2 Japanese girls from Nagoya joined us midway but they were much better and faster than us and were gone in a flash.
When we were done, we wrote in the guest book, took a few pictures and she gave us a
bag of treats. It was great to see her kind face lighten up just to have people come into her gallery. I hope to meet her again.
Next we went to a hotel info office. We were looking for prices of local hotels
for future use. One man spoke English very well. He had everything we needed. He even gave us a DVD of the local area, and CD of hotel info such as pricing and what they look like. He was so helpful! He came outside with us to take a picture together and say goodbye. He will be coming to Taiwan in October to set up a booth in the World Travel Fair in Taipei. So there’s a chance we’ll meet again.
We went back to Rocky’s house after that and made some videos for a skit we’re making. You’ll get to see it one day when it’s done. It should be funny. We used David Peyrot as a special guest. He does a fantastic job!
Then we went to Ikumi’s little, once a week, outdoor bread stand. She had gone to France and learned how to make proper bread and is one of a small populous that knows how to do this in Asia. She opens at 16:00 and goes to 21:00 but takes all of the previous day to prepare it. Many locals of Hagiwara, where she sells it, comes not only for the bread but also to hang out and chat. At one point there were about 11-12 people there. We were only missing the beer. So Rocky introduced us to many people and we truly enjoyed ourselves. That’s what’s so great about such a small town. Everyone has time to do these kinds of things. And once you get introduced, they treat you remarkably well.
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