Japan: Bathing inn bemusement

The Atrium Bar offers a sanctuary away from the after-dinner wackiness. Photo / Rob McFarland

I'm sitting at a bar wearing a dressing gown, listening to a lime green-clad Mexican band singing La Bamba. I'm surrounded by dozens of similarly dressed Japanese, most of whom are smiling and clapping along as if this is a perfectly normal way to spend a Friday night.

It sounds like the sort of bizarre dream brought on by too much cheese before bed. What's stranger still is I'm nowhere near Mexico and despite La Bamba being one of my least favourite songs, I'm smiling and clapping along, too.

From the minute you arrive at Kagaya Hotel on the eastern side of Japan's Noto Peninsula, it's clear this is not your run-of-the-mill traditional Japanese inn, or ryokan. As our bus pulls up outside, seven staff dressed in wooden slippers and matching blue-and-white kimonos scamper outside to form a welcoming line that extends to the hotel's front door.

I'm shown to my room by a maid and here, at least, things start to feel a bit more familiar. The rooms are decorated in traditional Japanese style with tatami-mat floors and sliding screen doors. The main living area is sparsely furnished with a table, a low-backed chair, one painting and a vase, while the dressing room next door is empty except for a mirror that has been covered with a velvet throw.

After showing me around my room, Rina, my ever-smiling maid, produces a cup of green tea. Her English is excellent, which is just as well because it takes a fair bit of tuition before I grasp how to wear and secure the dressing gown-like yukata and slippers guests are encouraged to wear.

First stop is the hotel's onsen, or bathhouse. The hotel is in an area called Wakura Onsen, which is famous for its hot springs. The region was discovered 1200 years ago when legend claims a white heron was seen bathing in seawater to heal an injury. Since then, the Japanese have been coming here to treat all manner of ailments. The waters are supposed to be particularly good for rheumatism, gout and digestive disorders.

Kagaya's two gender-segregated bathhouses are huge, three-level affairs with several indoor and outdoor pools as well as a sauna and jacuzzi each. There is a strict etiquette when visiting a Japanese bathhouse and despite some explanatory English signage in the changing rooms, I'm still a little bemused.

After undressing and putting my clothes in a locker, I wander aimlessly, fuelled by a long-held view that approaching another naked man and asking him to lead me to the showers could be taken the wrong way. Eventually, I stumble across them by accident and, after a thorough scrub, I'm ready to hit the baths.

I lie back in a blissfully hot outdoor pool and watch the sun drain from the sky over the bay, I can finally see what all the fuss is about.

If you were staying at Kagaya on your own, dinner would be served in your room but because I'm here with a group, we dine in one of the hotel's 42 private banquet rooms. Seven low tables, are laden with an intriguing assortment of appetisers, including dried sea cucumber, sea urchin and pickled sea snail. A metal dish over a burner contains abalone that's so fresh it's still moving.

For the next two hours we're presented with a steady stream of delicacies by yukata-clad staff who shuffle reverentially into the room on their knees.

A variety of entertainment options are available after dinner and they're all equally bizarre. The headline act in the Matsuri Festival Theatre is a mime artist; there's a high-kicking cabaret act in the Hanafubuki Club and a forlorn-looking nightclub with mirrored walls and a spinning disco ball stands empty.

Which is why I gravitate to the bar. It's quiet and looks like it could be a temporary sanctuary from all this wackiness. Then the shimmering green Mexicans turn up.

Kagaya has been voted the number one ryokan in Japan for the past 28 years. Which is bewildering given it's about as far removed from a traditional Japanese ryokan as you can get. But I guess that's its appeal. It's like Vegas does Japan - crazy but compelling.