This video is brought to you by Squarespace
So in this video I'm gonna share with you guys what it's like
in a tattoo friendly onsen hotel just about an hour away from Tokyo
So today we're hitting up Atami Onsen
less than one hour away from Tokyo and about 40 minutes from Shinagawa station
Which makes it an ultra popular spot for locals to visit for the weekend
to enjoy a relaxing ryokan onsen experience
In front of Atami station there's an onsen-gai
where many souvenir shops and restaurants are gathered
You'll find many seafood products and food specialties,
like onsen manju [steamed buns], so many unique Atami treats
So make sure to try them out when you're here
Oh, and Atami beaches within walking distance
So this area gets even more popular
during the summer months compared to like now winter
But I'm good with quiet, at least once in a while
and this is where we're spending the weekend - hotel Kan-Ichi
The building is a bit older, but the inside is renovated,
so it's fairly nice and clean
I chose this hotel because their public onsen baths are tattoo friendly
and they also have private onsen baths that you can reserve
However, the hotel asked guests with tattoos to be respectful
and try to use the bath during less busy hours if possible
As some locals still get scared of tattoos,
especially the older ones
So I'm kind of excited to show you guys
but before we start, like always
if you want to help support the channel,
check out the Tokyo merch
If you want to see what I'm doing on the daily,
check out my Instagram account.
If you have any questions about Japan, I recently started a discord channel
you can connect with people who know about Japan, who love Japan
It's just a really really helpful site for you guys
to like connect and get all your questions answered
Links are always in the description
And without further ado, let's do this!
So this is kind of like the main bedroom, but let me show you the second room
This is the second bedroom that I was talking about,
perfect for families or if you're here with another couple
It's actually pretty spacious for Japanese standards
And that brings me back to where we started
I guess the only thing left to do - let's check out the onsen
Well, not the only thing left to do, because we have to also eat
You look like a ninja turtle
Maiko: Stop it.
If you are a ninja turtle, which ninja turtle would you be?
Oh, what's available?
I think I'm more like Raphael
I feel just like the guy
Which guy is that?
He is the red guy, the guy with the sai
I also thought of Donatello, cuz I thought I was a little bit smart, but
It's like we're on the rooftop
I feel like we're literally on the rooftop right now
We've got this key
Maiko has already got into the onsen bath
This is nice because we have it all for ourselves
and just beyond you can actually see the ocean
It's kind of too dark today
But if you come here during the day,
then you can definitely see the ocean from here
It's just kind of perfect
It's kind of like a nice couple's retreat to get away from Tokyo
and you just like have a private onsen bath
How was the onsen Maiko?
Feels good
Alright looks like the food is ready,
Maiko's already at the table taking a few pictures, but
before we start got to make sure that this dinner is paid for,
so I wanted to give a quick shout out to Squarespace sponsoring this video
So without them I wouldn't be able to make these videos for you guys
If you guys don't already know
Squarespace is the perfect platform to create your online presence
If you're familiar with the channel
you know that we host everything on Tokyo Zebra,
and it's all built on Squarespace
It's just a so super easy to use
The Squarespace blogging platform supports configurable sharing buttons
letting visitors share content on sites like Facebook and Twitter
and we personally use the powerful blogging tools
to tell our story, share updates and post photos and videos
which you can easily do too
And if you're an analytics nerd like me
You can see a lot of cool insights on who's viewing your website,
what they're looking at, what pages they're looking at
and see the trends over time, so you can build a better website
So go to squarespace.com and check out your free trial today
and when you're ready to launch go to squarespace.com/paolofromtokyo
and get 10% off your first month's website or domain. Check it out now!
As Maiko would like to say: time to eat!
I love how they have all of these little appetizers
We have some ebi [shrimp],
some maguro [bluefin tuna], some uni [sea urchin]
even get some sazae [horned turban]
You can pull this and if you get it right
you get the whole entire
all the meat from the shell
Mmm, it has kind of like a bitter, rubbery,
kind of like a tough texture but also kind of chewy at the same time.
Try this sashimi, dip it in
Mmm, that's some fresh sashimi
You have this little like translucent layer of skin
it's like a thinly [sliced] piece of like daikon right there
Mm-hmm. It's nice and fluffy. I like that
And the dashi is nice too
Well, let me taste this niku [meat] that we've been cooking
So it might be a little bit overcooked
I was talking just a little bit too much
Let's see
It tastes like the fat that was the marble inside of the meat itself
It is quite fatty, so I think Maiko probably wouldn't like it so much,
but I kind of like it
Look at that
I like how she's separating the fish for us
So this is the kinmedai [golden-eye snapper]
It has a shoyu [soy sauce] base
The soup itself is a little bit sweet
It's kind of made out of shoyu and they've added a little bit of sugar to it
Can taste that umami
Yeah, it's kind of like a nice sweet shoyu base sauce
And the rice even comes with kombu [kelp]
It smells really strong
This is like the equivalent to putting soy sauce in the rice
Maiko: No!
No, cuz he gives it flavor
So Japanese people don't put soy sauce on the rice, you know
You may or may not know that
Growing up in the States I did that when I was a kid
But you know when I came to Japan it was like
what are you doing putting soy sauce on your rice?
Definitely a no-no here in Japan
You're not supposed to color your white rice
With kombu it gets colored.
That's fine. With kombu it's fine
But like when you're eating you don't like pour stuff on the rice
You just don't do it, but it's okay to do at home
It's gonna be like home eating
So after that big-ass fish comes some more...
...fish. So this is sawara [Spanish mackerel]
Almost like it's been barbecued
Kind of like painted across with like a nice sweet glaze
And after this dessert comes
This is a lot of food for two people
The menu was completely different for dinner than next night
We had shabu-shabu,
a huge sashimi boat
and an assortment of Japanese style side dishes. It was delicious!
So after dinner is finished,
the lady comes up and cleans your room
takes away all the plates and everything and then afterwards
she actually set up the futons
which she's doing right now, you can see behind me
Maiko's on her phone again
I'm waiting for you!
Maiko, you wanna sleep on the left or the right?
Window side
I think I sleep on this side
Why?
Because I'm gonna wake up and film
Oh, I won
One thing I never get about the Japanese futons is
you have these bed sheets they never cover the top part
why don't you think they ever put the top part they have for bed sheets?
So you save money on the fabric
and it's easier to change
This style is from a long time ago
Isn't it feel dirty there on the top? I feel like I don't want to touch it ever
Don't touch it, that's why you have
Good morning, Maiko
This looks delicious!
Nothing like waking up in the morning
and having breakfast prepared all for you
man, like honestly
this is what I call a Japanese breakfast
it has all these little bits and pieces
of zensai [appetizers] Japanese culture -
enriched, infused and just I'm good to go this morning
Look at this
This is called bakudan [bomb]
It has some natto
It has some wasabi
maguro [tuna] like a minced maguro
takuan [daikon radish] and it even has some okura [okra] right there
and what you do is you take it, you mix it up
then all you have to do is get your rice
get a scoop of bakudan, throw it in like that
and that is what you call an explosion in your mouth
So most ryokans in Atami offer himono
which is dried or semi dried fish for breakfast
but at this spot they let you choose which type of himono
So just had the morning onsen
Always good to hydrate afterwards
and it's actually pretty decent, really, really clean
Not the biggest in the world, but still pretty clean
What was nice about it too was that if you do have kids
and have like a baby crib there so you can see that
It's like it is geared to be that quite family friendly
I think, well, what Maiko tells me is that this particular onsen water
like meant to exfoliate your skin
So for those of you who are looking to exfoliate,
this could be the perfect onsen
Once Maiko's done doing her makeup,
then I'll take you guys around Atami, kind of show you around
maybe some cool spots to eat
It's raining though outside
Yeah, we might just stay inside. Yeah, maybe we won't go outside
to show you guys around
So unfortunately it's raining today,
so I guess we're just gonna hop in a taxicab
[The hotel] let us borrow some umbrellas
Where's the rice bowl? I wanted to go to this spot
you don't know if it's that good, but let's try it
So we decided to go into a fish burger joint
known for using fresh Atami seafood and Atami craft beer
It doesn't get more local than that!
I got the Jazz berries, this is a craft beer
they don't have a lot of it
It almost smells like wine
That's good, it's a very fruity raspberry
I could drink a whole lot of it
almost tastes like a raspberry drink with like a can of beer
So this place is relatively new around this area,
but I wanted to try a fish burger
I've got the tatsuta age maguro [marinated deep fried tuna]
which is like a tuna burger
and the brown sauce is actually a sesame that has some sprouts on top
And some lotus root, tomatoes, egg and then you have the tuna burger
You can actually get a grilled tuna or I got that tatsuta age [deep fried, coated with potato starch]
Which is kind of like it's like a breaded skin around the tuna
Oh, that's good Wow, I got to take another bite
You can taste the tomatoes, you can taste the egg,
you got the crunchiness of the tuna
Like it's really well done
The tuna itself is fresh and the egg is just a really really nice
That is a good burger
All right, since it's raining, we're not gonna go try any more food
But we are at the conbini and I'm gonna get some stuff to eat at home
So we've gone all over goods
but as you can see it's raining quite a lot outside
So Maiko just called at the taxi, pretty much have to call the taxi,
and we didn't actually know the number
but we asked the convenience store lady
if we can get the number from her and she gave it to us and
We'll be on our way and I can show you guys some treats
All right
all right, so we got all the snacks from the conbini
First of all, while we're trying out all this stuff
I found some Atami beers, some pale ale and some Pilsner
Gonna try the pale ale
Huh, that's pretty good,
not the best beer I've had but not the worst
No, it's like I don't know if I like it or not
maybe worth trying if you come here
We got actually a lot of different snacks,
and I don't know which ones to try
One thing that Maiko found today was this
strong potato chips dandan mian [spicy Sichuan noodles] flavor
Oh Wow
Wow, it's really smells like Chinese herbs and sansho-like the spiciness. Let's try it
Mm-hmm. It's like your regular
potato chip with ridges and it also has got sansho [Japanese pepper]
Like I'm not a 100% fan of sansho just by itself
and it tastes kind of like that by itself
If you like sansho then this is kind of it
Maiko, what do you think?
I wish it was more like dandan mian flavor
It's like sansho is so overpowering
I like sansho
I like it
You have it
All right, we're checking out now
I hope you guys liked this video
on a tattoo friendly onsen hotel just by Tokyo
If you did then hit that like button
But remember there are a lot of onsen hotels in the Atami area
If you have tattoos then you don't want to go to a hotel
that doesn't allow you to have a public bath
or if that hotel has like the reserved onsen baths, that works as well
Otherwise, if you don't have a tattoo then you're good,
you can go to any hotel you want.
Also, the food here varies every day
so you get kind of like different options and different looks
if you decide to stay longer like Maiko and I did
instead of staying one night
we actually stayed two nights so we can kind of enjoy it
Aside from that again
if you guys want to see what I'm doing on the daily,
then check out my Instagram account
And finally if you want to see more videos like this
or any of my other Japan guides
then hit that subscribe button and the bell button
and I'll catch you guys in the next one!