Part 3 of Part 2 of the 3 Day Tour

Oh man I’m falling behind and I’m still mid-story about my three day weekend. As I mentioned, the tulips in Tonami were beautiful, as you will see in my pictures. Also fun, we got to eat tulip ice cream. I don’t know if that was just a name they called it or if the ice cream was actually supposed to taste like a tulip. Either way, it was delicious! And now more pictures of flowers than you probably want to see.

Tulip Gallery

First stop: tulip ice cream

Special year round, indoor tulip garden. The mirrors were a cool touch to make it seem much larger than it really was.

Inside the museum part was a very cool display of hundreds of different tulips grouped by color.

Me and the giant tulips

A display that was a 3D projection showing what a blue tulip would look like if they ever genetically engineered one. I was trying to make it look like it was floating above my hand.

A cool display in the museum.

The other flowers they had in a garden outside.

I'm pretty sure those are pineapples.

Yes, those are giant Dutch clogs. Snazzy, right?

The souvenir I bought myself. A handmade glass cup shaped like a tulip. It actually has several different colors (you can sort of see the yellow right about the stem) but I forgot to take a picture until after I had poured in my wine...we'll just call this an action shot.

After that we headed to the Fukumitsu Hanayama Onsen Hotel. Here we experienced a traditional Japanese style hotel (ryokan) and dinner. As soon as we arrived we decided to relax in the onsen but first we were told we should try the special “sand bath” they had at this place. I had no idea what they meant by sand bath but we soon found out that guys and girls get their own room to strip down and put on a special robe and then everyone goes to a room that feels sort of like a sauna but the floor is covered in sand.

When you arrive the attendant tells you to lie down on the sand and then covers your body in more hot sand. It was very hot and I was drowning in sweat by the time I sat up about 20minutes later. It was a unique experience but I don’t know if I really feel the need to repeat it anytime soon. I asked what the purpose of this was and was told that it was supposed to be good for your skin and to help with diets. I’m pretty sure that just means you sweat so much of your water weight into the sand that you are actually several pounds lighter. I personally enjoyed the normal onsen we went to after rinsing the sand off much more.

Our traditional Japanese dinner was delicious. It was in a room with tatami mats and we each had our own little table with lots of different foods to try. There were some rather unique dishes including squid served in its own ink. After dinner we spent the rest of the night relaxing and hanging out.

Everyone in yukata and waiting to kanpai (toast) before eating.

The meal that was waiting for us. More was brought out as we were eating.

One of our servers.

Squid cooked in its own ink. A novelty and not too bad flavor-wise either.

The results right after eating the inky squid. Attractive, I know.

Dessert. A small cake and a lemon gel of some sort that was served in an actual lemon rind.