Dogo Hot Spring Spa

The Onsen Experience...

A clan of Japanese boys laughed at me on the street, but I couldn't conclude why. Perhaps it was my wildly bright tee shirt, which is orange and blue and screams ADIDAS. Perhaps it was my yellow Oakland A's hat, which, like a crucifix around the neck, I wore religiously. Or perhaps it was because I was stretching like Billy Hoyle in the film White Men Can't Jump, insanely bending over and backwards in broad daylight. I was only doing so to ease the pain in my ancient hip, which at the time was at least forty years older than the rest of my body, which was 22.

In a few minutes, though, I made it to Dogo Onsen, where I soaked my ailing joints and search for the inspiration I had heard Dogo was so famous for providing. Then, I thought to myself, the pain in my hip and the laughing on the street will be but a memory.

On my way to Dogo Onsen, I had strolled past Dogo Koen, a lush green park in an eastern district of Matsuyama, Shikoku's largest city. The sun burned down upon my neck, heating my body like the hot spring waters I later immersed myself in. Like earthquakes and volcanoes, onsen are commonplace in Japan, perhaps the most physically volatile nation in the world. And like all onsen, Dogo is a bubbling cauldron boiled to perfect tempertaures, tailor-made for humans to drop themselves in to fry tempura-style. Though it was not my first onsen experience, Dogo - the oldest public bathhouse in Japan - was the most famous onsen I had been to. Some argue that Dogo is the most famous onsen in Japan.

But I wasn't going to argue, I was going to bathe. I made my way through the Yano-machi shopping arcade and I knew that Dogo was close; the couples in yucata happily pointed my way. They had already bathed and in celebration meandered the streets with the speed of drying paint. Persimmon and tangerine shops on my right, red bean cake stores on my left, and anxious greetings met my every move. "Issharaishaimasen!" (Wouldn't you like some of this!) "Sumimasen, dozo!" (Please come in!)

By sake sellers and china merchants, juice stands and fish sausage grills, I limped to the Onsen Honkan, where I bought my ticket and entered the gates. I had to dodge photos on the way; Japanese tourists took in a favorite domestic sight with subdued enthusiasm. For my part, I have never understood the Japanese and their cameras. Yes, they snap pictures with Indycar rapidity, but the thing that blinds me is the way that they pose for their photo-ops. In front of a monument, framing a flower, presenting a view, I don't recall ever seeing the Japanese smile for a photograph. Most of the photos frame girls alone, posing as tall as a pine, while their boyfriends, husbands or fathers take the sullen shot. There is no smile but neither a frown, the expression is something in between, perhaps like a soldier would pose for a military identification card. A friend once argued that they're afraid to show their teeth, but it seems more likely that the Japanese are afraid of taking a 'bad' photograph. It's a social disaster to look sub-par at any time, let alone in something so permanent as a photograph. How else could one explain such seriousness in a vacation photo?

I didn't have my picture taken in front of Dogo, but you probably could have guessed that. If you come here alone like I did, and want yours taken, there are guards in the street who will happily oblige.

After buying my ticket I walked slowly up to the entryway of the onsen house, taking my time to take in my surroundings. The sign above the threshold seemed to require years of Japanese study; it was all in kanji and the scripted characters made it extensively more cumbersome to decode.