Zaborin

Throughout the years, I’ve found a number of reasons to travel: weddings, a honeymoon (not even my own), a cacti festival, a one-year-old’s birthday party, an olive harvest… But never has ‘taking a bath’ been a top reason to book a hotel room. That is, however, until I heard about luxury hotel Zaborin.

Let me preface this by saying, I am whole-heartedly a shower person. I’ve always admired people who enjoy a soak and genuinely wish I could partake in the sudsy fun. The thing is, I’ve never sat in soapy water for more than three minutes before thinking, ‘Okay, what now?’ But then, everything changed when I spent two glorious, water-filled nights at Zaborin. If you’ve never been to Japan, it’s worth mentioning that the Japanese take their baths seriously. Visiting an onsen – or natural hot spring – is a time-honored tradition among the locals that dates back to at least the eighth century (so it’s more historic than just a Jacuzzi craze). Like any age-old ritual, there are rules: swimwear is generally not allowed (nope, not even in public baths), you’re expected to wash your entire body before hitting the thermal H2O, and you can bring a hand towel with you, which you’ll then place on top of your head while you soak.

After discovering what a big deal hot-spring culture is in Japan, I  realised how special it is to stay at Zaborin, where each room has two private onsens – one inside and one outdoors. For once, a tub (or two, in this case) piqued my interest.

 When I first arrived at the hotel, I had plenty to do. I took a tour, met the onsite matcha master (who taught me the proper way to mix the frothy green tea), and, perusing the library and DVD collection, figured I’d hole up for the night and watch a couple of movies. However, I never made it to Blade Runner or Memoirs of a Geisha (a cliché pick, I know) because once I put one leg in my patio onsen, I knew I wasn’t getting out for a while – bath time had superseded all my other plans.

The tub itself looked as if it had been carved out of volcanic rock – appropriate, as I could spot Mount Yotei, an active volcano, from my patio. Sitting on the ledge of the bath, there was an oversized copper ladle, which I’d been told should be used to stir the water and mix up its natural mineral content. It’s said that this this geothermal elixir can heal aches and pains, speed up the metabolism and help treat chronic skin diseases. Personally, I’d add jet lag cure to that list, too. After steeping for about 20 minutes, I felt the stress of 15 hours of travel melt away as I stared out at the snow-covered forest surrounding the hotel.  

The only thing that could tempt me away from my tub that night was the 11-course dinner included with my stay. I clung to the factoid about mineral water ramping up the metabolism as I devoured every morsel of that feast. The menu was written by hand in both Japanese and English, and was pretty enough to frame as artwork. My meal included innovative dishes such as red miso soup with leek; wagyu beef roasted over local pine-tree wood; and a sashimi platter with tuna, flounder, sea urchin, squid and horse-hair crab. I polished off my dessert (jelly made of white-birch sap, wild-grape water and ice cream with white-miso apple sauce), then hightailed it back to the room. Tub-time part two!

I did go skiing on my second afternoon, and a driver from the hotel dropped me at the Hanazono Resort, which is just five minutes from Zaborin. I spent about two hours on the slopes and then popped into the lodge to slurp ramen and enjoy a bottle of Kirin while a guitarist played live. After lunch, I headed back out for a couple more runs, but at the first sign of soreness in my legs, I decided I’d need to seek treatment immediately. I prescribed myself an hour of bouncing back and forth between my indoor and outdoor onsens, followed by another 11-course banquet and a glass of sake. Low and behold, that was exactly what I needed.

Before leaving Japan entirely, I stopped in Tokyo for 48 hours and spent an afternoon stocking up on bath accessories. A tub-time convert, I knew the capital city would have the goods to fuel my new obsession. I found exactly what I needed at Tokyu Hands, a store with eight floors of home supplies and beauty products, including the most impressive selection of bath salts I have ever seen. I grabbed a dozen envelopes filled with scented soaks and decorated with cartoon characters, sumo wrestlers and cherry blossoms. My humble bath tub at home has nothing on a volcanic spring, but at least I’ll think of Zaborin each time I take a dip.