Tag Archives: Stephanie Yoder

The “Bare” Basics: The Do’s and Don’ts of the Japanese Onsen

You never forget your first onsen experience.

Mine was called “Spa World“, and it sounded like heaven on earth. Located in downtown Osaka, Spa World was like the Disney World of Japanese bathhouses. With ten floors, it’s one of the largest onsens in the world: it’s open 24 hours, has two elaborately themed floors of baths (one is European, the other Asian), a water park, a food court, a gym and of course a salon and spa. It was a beautiful monster.

Onsens come in all different sizes, from tiny city owned outdoor pools to fancy hotel-adjacent spa centers. The hot water is pumped from mineral springs, heated by the volcanic earth. The mineral content of the water is supposed to promote health and healing as well as relaxation.

Never having been to an onsen before and speaking exactly zero Japanese, I was a bit apprehensive. But I wasn’t about to let that hold me back from the inviting hot water, so I figured I’d reason it out as I went.

And I did… sort of. It wasn’t easy. So here’s my guide to help you navigate your onsen experience more smoothly:

Do: Follow the Crowd

The Japanese have a system for everything, which is kind of great…as long as you know what’s going on. Most onsens, even the big ones as it turns out, don’t have signs in English. Luckily you can usually figure out what’s going on by following the people around you.

Don’t: Bother Bringing a Bathing Suit

It quickly became apparent that the shiny red one-piece I’d carried along wasn’t welcome here. Yup, you will be naked. Luckily almost all onsens are segregated by sex. Once you’re in the locker room you’ll only be seeing your fellow men, or women.

There’s no sense in feeling modest- nudity is an expected non-event and most people treat it like the most natural thing in the world (which I suppose it is). Don’t bother trying to hide under your (tiny) towel, you’ll just look silly. After a while it can actually feel quite liberating to walk around without those pesky clothes.

A selection of robes you can borrow at Ooedo Onsen- photo by Ariesgirl

Do: Get Very, Very Clean

Listen up, because this is the most critical step: onsen users are very concerned with cleanliness, so before you even think about getting near the baths, you need to take a shower. There’s no use doing this at home beforehand- it needs to be in full view of everyone to confirm your clean status. If you try to go in the baths without washing first you will get some serious side-eye and possibly be sent back out.

Some onsens have showerheads; other use small vanity stands with a sink and bucket. Wash thoroughly and use the soap and shampoo. Really scrub yourself down. Once you feel thoroughly cleaned you can pick up your (tiny) towel and head into the baths.

Don’t: Have Tattoos

Exposed tattoos are a non-starter. Body art is not really done in Japan unless you’re a card carrying member of the yakuza (Japanese mafia,) so many onsens will not allow tattoos on bathers. If your tat is small you may be able to cover it with a bandage. If you have a full sleeve, you may want to check ahead with the onsen to see if you’ll be allowed.

Do: Enjoy the Hot Water

Now you can relax and soak it all in. The water can be quite hot so ease in slowly. Leave your (tiny) towel on the edge, don’t let it get wet. If you’re with friends, chatting is okay; yelling, splashing or swimming is generally frowned upon.

The bigger onsens have different types of baths to choose from. Some vary greatly in temperature (if you’re feeling brave take a dip in the cold pool before sinking into the warm- you will tingle all over).

Definitely test out all the different options. Spa World had outdoor Japanese style tubs, indoor Persian baths and even a carbonated bath!

Most onsens will also have a sauna. When you use the sauna make sure you sit on your (tiny) towel- nobody wants to sit where your sweaty butt has been!

Onsen with a view at the Kawaguchiko Hotel- photo by Composthp

Don’t: Shower Post-soak

After soaking up the waters until I felt slightly past-prunish, I jumped back into the shower. No no! A woman told me frantically, gesturing at me to get out. Apparently you’re not supposed to shower before you leave- this is when the minerals soak into your skin.

Do: Take a Nice Nap

With all of the warmth and relaxation you may find yourself getting sleepy. Do not fall asleep in the tub, trust me people will look at you funny. Many of the bigger baths have napping rooms. Get a big drink of water and then get ready for some of the best sleep of your life.

For first time visitors, the strict procedure (and the nakedness) can be intimidating, but don’t miss out on this important and really enjoyable aspect of Japanese culture.

Stephanie Yoder

Stephanie is a girl who can’t sit still. Since graduating she has spent her time either roaming the earth or saving up for her next trip, until finally quitting the rat race for good to become a full time writer, blogger and owner of Twenty-Something Travel.

You can follow her travels on Google+ Twitter and Facebook

Celebrate the End of Party Culture in Vang Vieng

Travel blogger Stephanie Yoder of TwentySomething Travel explains why she doesn’t miss this former “amusement park for western imperialism.” Find out why she will continue to visit – and why the past is nothing to write home about.

Ask any veteran backpacker in South East Asia and they will tell you it’s the end of an era. Vang Vieng, Laos, the former capital of party tourism in the region, a seven days a week blow out bash along the sleepy Nam Song river, is no more. The bars have been shuttered, the zip lines torn down and the drugs banished by the Laos government. The party is over.

Personally, I say good riddance.

Green Cliffs
by SeenThat

I visited Vang Vieng in March 2011 at the height of the backpacker boom. The town’s reputation had proceeded it throughout the region in whispers and knowing glances, absurd stories and the ever-present “In the Tubing” t-shirts. For many people this seemed to be THE reason to visit Laos. Of course I had to check it out for myself.

I arrived on a dusty school bus packed with other backpackers. The formerly sleepy Lao village had all the hallmarks of a town grown too fast, crowded with guest houses, sunglass shops and pizza places. Cafes full of hungover twenty-somethings blared Family Guy and Friends re-runs on an endless loop

The main attraction for the thousands of shoe-stringers who flocked here each year was tubing along the river. Or, more accurately: getting completely wasted at the riverside bars that line the banks, luring backpackers with free shots and thumping pop music. The place was complete and utter lawless hedonism: $1 cocktails, “magic” mushroom pizzas, opium tea and more.

Heaven for backpackers? Maybe for some, but I left unimpressed. While I did enjoy eating some western food, tubing down the river and drinking a $3 bucket or two, I couldn’t get over the sleazy dubiousness of the whole place. I was relieved to hear about the changes made by the government. I know some backpackers must be reacting with indignation, but here’s why they are wrong:

First of all, tourists in Vang Vieng were literally DYING. Drowning, overdosing, breaking their necks on unsafe swings. Not just one or two either, almost 30 backpackers died in 2011. Tragically it seems that drugs, fast running water and zero safety precautions are not a safe combination. This alone is reason enough to shutter the insanity.

Secondly, I’ll get up on my soapbox and say it: this is BAD travel. Really terrible travel: western imperialism and sense of entitlement and a local hotspot grown totally out of control. People didn’t visit Vang Vieng because they were interested in travel, they simply saw it as an amusement park for rich foreigners.

I saw some of the worst kinds of tourists while I was in Vang Vieng. Laotians are a very modest people, yet young Australians paraded around in nothing but bikinis all day long. Spoiled kids threw trash on the ground, littered the river with beer bottles and were rude to the locals. Whatever local culture Vang Vieng might once have had has been destroyed and paved over with cafes that play Family Guy all day long.

Vang Vieng
by SeenThat

Some will argue that the party crowd brought much needed business to the local economy. Yes, but at what cost? Laos is one of the poorest countries in the world, obviously the people there are going to earn whatever money they can get, but do you think it’s right that they have become reduced to drug dealers and party facilitators?

Finally, let me let you in on a little secret: Vang Vieng is still there. You can still visit. You can even still tube down the Nam Song, relax and take in the beautiful Karst mountains. There is trekking, rock climbing and caves to be explored, local villages, temples and an organic farm.

Nam Xong
by SeenThat

There is still plenty to see and do here. Without the massive drug and party culture dominating the town, they have a unique chance to reinvent themselves as an eco-tourism destination. Did you love Vang Vieng? Go support it now.

You can follow her travels on Google+ Twitter and Facebook

5 Terrible Travelers

I’ll never forget the most horrible traveler I’ve ever met. He was skulking around the Full Moon Party in Koh Phangan, a sort of haven for obnoxious party animals, but this guy rose above the rest. It wasn’t just his blindly neon outfits or his constant inebriation that made him stand out- it was the incredible rudeness and entitlement that oozed from everything he did. He was rude to the locals (he called the hostel owner’s baby a monkey!) and inconsiderate to his fellow travelers. His antics culminated in him peeing in the corner of our dorm room one night. I don’t think anyone was disappointed to see him slink off the next morning. There’s just something about South East Asia that attracts people with all the worst reasons for traveling. For the most part I don’t really care WHY people travel, just that they DO. Yet, there are some really terrible reasons to travel, and if you recognize yourself in these, you’d be better off staying home:

“The World is my Night Club”
The guy I mentioned above should NOT have been traveling. He should have stayed home and learned some manners before inflicting himself on the world. He didn’t care much where he was, he just wanted to have a good time and if he could do that on the cheap down in Thailand, then all the better. You don’t have to travel solely for culture, and it’s fine to party it up overseas, but at a bare minimum you should show some respect for the country you are visiting. The world is not your no-consequence-playground.

“I Want an Exotic Girlfriend”
You’ll find these guys hanging out at expat bars in across South East Asia with a very pretty, usually much younger, local lady (or ladyboy if they’re not careful) glued to their side. They’ve figured out that supply-side economics is on their side and over here they can attract women who wouldn’t look twice at them at home. C’mon guys, if nobody wants to date you back at home, please don’t inflict yourself on the locals somewhere else. Plus, don’t you want to be more than someone’s pocketbook with legs?

“I’m Running Away”
Probably not from the law (although I’m sure it happens), but from problems at home. One girl I met in Vietnam was in debt up to her ears back in the UK, and was simply puttering around Asia until her money ran out. “And then?” she shrugged and downed another shot of rice wine. The problem with this method is that it simply doesn’t work. You can run from your problems, you can put oceans between you and the issues, but you can’t escape them.

“I Don’t Want to Grow Up”
Okay Peter Pan. I know being part of the real world is scary, with all of its pressures and responsibilities. I don’t blame you for wanting to defer that as long as possible. The thing is, you end up growing up anyways- you can’t escape the real world forever. Eventually you’re just the old guy at the bar with no self-awareness.

“I Want to Get it Out of the Way”
Every once in awhile I stumble across one of these naïve career-oriented souls. “I’m just getting my travel out of the way now, then I’ll go back home and get a real job,” they say earnestly over Beer Laos. Well, good luck with that. The thing they haven’t bargained for is that travel is insanely addictive. It’s not something you just “get out of your system” before you go back to real life. The more you see, the more you discover there is to see. You’ve opened a Pandora’s Box of wanderlust and going back to work won’t just close it up.

Which brings me back to the actual good reasons to travel. There are far more of them then there are bad ones: curiosity, a restless heart, a love for the world and everything in it. A view of travel as a challenge to be discovered and explored and not a panacea or convenient escape from acting like a real human being. The reasons to travel are as broad as the sun – and the rewards are too.

Just don’t be a jerk.

by Stephanie Yoder

5 Top Travel Bloggers Name “The Worst Thing I Ever Ate”

Popular Food Network and Travel Channel shows featuring famed food adventurers like Anthony Bourdain and Andrew Zimmern have made it cool to eat like a local. We asked our famed travel bloggers “What’s the craziest thing you ever ate?” The answers were brave…can you say cobra a la carte?

Ant Tacos

Lost in Translation, Marrakech
Nellie Huang

We were in the chaotic Djemma el Fna food market in Marrakech, hunting through the smoke and blinding lights for some local food at a budget price.

At Stall 34, blazing flames were clouding the sky in smoke and the aroma from the barbecued meat skewers was too tempting to pass up. My friends ordered several brochette de viande or meat skewers (the only item that we could read in French) right off the sizzling grill but I was craving for something new and exciting.

I scrolled through the menu, which was written only in French, and randomly picked a dish.

“Cerveaux de moutons s’il vous plaît!” The cook looked at me and smiled. Clearly, I had no idea what was coming.

Soon enough a dish was produced: it looked like a lightly sautéed chunk of mincemeat, but in the dim lights, I could hardly make out what it was and the cook didn’t speak any English. I was too hungry to care. I took a bite on the tender meat and almost threw it up. It had a soft, tofu-like texture and a strong gamey taste. No, it wasn’t beef. Neither was it lamb. It had a subtle hint of herbs. Bull testicles? Pigeon?

It was only when I returned home and checked up on the translation of the word did I solve the puzzle. It was sheep brains, and apparently it was a delicacy in Morocco.

No wonder the cook was pointing to his head the whole time!

A Cobra Bloodbath, Hanoi
Stephanie Yoder

I’m comfortable with the implications of being a carnivore but still it’s unnerving to look your meal right in its still squirming face.

I’m not sure what I was expecting upon being invited to a Vietnamese snake restaurant. The building was just another generic store front on a dark street in the suburbs of Hanoi. I would never have found it (or sought it out) on my own. We were the only foreigners there yet dozens of groups sat in their own private areas, all feasting on the same thing: cobra.

The snake came out nearly immediately. “Who will eat the heart?” the server asked, passing around our very alive, very alert, and very poisonous entree, “Vietnamese Viagra!”

I laughed nervously and downed a shot of rice wine. Next to me, my boyfriend Michael raised his hand to volunteer.

Do snakes feel fear? I flinched when they brought the knife out. It was just a quick hand motion and the beating heart was outside the body, still attached, still pumping. Michael bent over and ripped it with his teeth. Vietnamese Viagra? No way I was kissing him now.

“How did it taste?”

“Slimy.”

In the confusion afterwards the snake was bled out, the blood mixed with the wine and handed out in thumb-sized cups. We toasted and drank. The wine overpowered any taste but the act itself felt primal. Next up, wine with venom and bile. This shot tingled on the way down. I tried not to think about it too hard.

The snake disappeared into the back to be cooked into an (ultimately delicious) 6-course meal. The rest of us, who were clearly having a better night than him, went back to drinking wine.

Bulls Balls in Brazil
Keith Jenkins

I saw them for the first time at a grill house or churrascaria in Foz do Iguaçu, the Brazilian side of Iguazu Falls. The restaurant chef accompanied me and explained the different parts of the cow on the massive grill.

With a chuckle, he proclaimed, “bulls balls”!

“Testicles? No way!”

I glanced at them and made a beeline for the juicy-looking tenderloins. But when I returned to my table I was horrified to see the person next to me sitting with an enormous testicle on his plate. Seeing me recoil in shock, he grinned and asked me if I’d ever tried it. I shook my head, trying to regain my cool and appear uninterested.

His grin grew wider, he cut a slice from the testicle and handed it to me.

I shook my head but no words came out of my mouth. The sight of his knife slicing through the testicle made me squirm in my seat. I looked at it on my plate and thought, “Get over it. It’s just a meatball!” I put my fork into it (ouch!) and raised it to my mouth. I munched on it twice and swallowed it quickly. The only thing I remember was a salty flavor, which I swiftly washed down with a big gulp of beer!

Having the Guts to Try Something New, Buenos Aires
Jessica Festa

One hungry afternoon in Buenos Aires, my friend and I caught a whiff of grilling meat and followed our noses to a street vendor selling the usual selection of choripan sausage and other snacks. Although delicious, choripan is pretty greasy and very fattening so I thought I’d brave something called morcipan. It was cheaper, darker and less greasy; vegetarian sausage I assumed, without stopping to ask either my friend or the vendor.

One bite was all I needed to realize something wasn’t quite right, but it tasted enough like black beans that I kept chewing. And I mean chewing. They were the chewiest black beans I’d ever eaten.

At one point I was yanking a very stretchy piece of “black bean” with my teeth trying to rip it out of the bun until the food actually snapped apart, whipping my head back. Annoyed, I turned to my friend and asked him why they made their vegetarian sausages so chewy in Argentina.

After nearly choking on his own food he finally explained what was wrong. This was no vegetarian dish, it was congealed pig blood and intestines. Let’s just say from then on I stuck to the fattening choripan.

Mexican Fried Critters
Mike Richard

It would appear that bugs are the last bastion of “extreme eating” nowadays. And I’d say that I’m a traveler willing to try (almost) anything.

Which is how I found myself in Puebla – the literal epicenter of Mexican cuisine – this past summer with a mouthful of multi-legged critters. The good chefs at El Mural de los Poblanos an upscale restaurant in the heart of the city – serve some of the most traditional fare in the entire country.

As an “appetizer”, we started with gusanos – worms fried table side and served in corn tortillas with salsa, guacamole and ground worm powder. They’re crispy, crunchy and well … fried. Once I got beyond the fact that I was eating worms, they were surprisingly tasty.

But the real prize was the escamoles – fried ant larvae served with all the same fixin’s as the worms. It goes without saying that, among the dozen travelers in our group, few opted to taste this admittedly terrifying delicacy.

I knew if I was gonna do it, I was going all the way – a heapin’ helpin’ of ant eggs with a dollop of salsa and guac spread liberally on a fresh tortilla. It all combines into a buttery, nutty, and slightly spicy mess of flavors. To be honest, it’s still one of the best things I’ve ever eaten in Mexico!

By Heather Green

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