11/5 - Arima Onsen - Arriving at the hot springs

We arrived in Takarazuka to begin our bus ride up the mountains to Arima Onsen.  We were way early for the next bus by a half hour.  So we hung around the Hankyu Department Store for most of that time.  We used their facilities (always use the facilities when you get a chance) and checked out their food floor.  Every Japanese department store has these large food floors.

On the bus, we quickly noticed that there weren't many other young folk on the bus.  There was maybe one or two.  I remember for sure that a young lady was sitting right in front of us and busy texting on her flip phone.  Everyone else were seniors travelling to the onsen.  I suspect that they wanted to take advantage of the health benefits of the natural hot springs.

The bus journey up the mountain was definitely not quick.  It must have been roughly an hour's ride winding up the small mountain road.  It wasn't overly twisty like some mountain roads that I've been on.  When we started in Takarazuka, I was hoping the bus would take the highway onramp, but no such luck.  In any case, we got to see a much more rural part of Japan than what I'm used to seeing.  Yes, that's right.  Japan is not one giant urban metropolis.  There are farms and little townships in Japan too.

Pretty soon, you could tell we were arriving in a touristy area when the bus stops were closer together and the shops looked neater.  We got off in the middle of town where the bus terminus is.  The bus basically dropped us off in front of the town's info centre and proceeded to back into its parking spot. 

We wandered off to what looks like possibly an artificial river in the Arima River.  There was a classic red Japanese bridge crossing over it.  We took a few pictures from over the bridge.  It looked like you could go down to this concrete river bed and get closer, but we weren't in the mood for that. As usual, we are always interested in food stuff and found a shop selling some buns of some sort.  We definitely needed to try some of those hot steamy buns. 

It was time for us to contact the hotel and get our ride to the hotel.  We were staying at a hotel called Taketoritei Maruyama.  It's an upscale ryokan that specializes in giving you a traditional Japanese sleeping experience in addition to their many onsen baths.  The Japanese size minivan picked us up and drove us up the hill past the town centre to the hotel.