Dogo Onsen Spa is located 5 km away to the east from my house. This district was out of the target zone of the U.S. in World War 2, and the main building was able to survive the war. It is said that U.S. military personnel wanted to bathe in the spa after the occupation. Anyway, no matter what the reason was, we were lucky to see the historical building now. We took our guests to the oldest building, which is also a historical heritage site in Japan. Amazingly, this spa is spoken of in Japanese mythology, in which this spa is said to have been found by an egret and used by some ancient "Ten-noh". You might be astonished, but during the Japanese-Russo War, war prisoners from Russia were allowed to use the spa freely. Japanese people in Matsuyama showed genuine hospitality to them. I'm writing about this hospitality in another entry later. Anyway, Dogo Onsen Spa is very famous, and you can easily find its entry on the internet.
By the way, we were in the spa for some time and the following picture shows us in the yukata, a kimono-like bathrobe. Our guests are sitting between A and me. After a short rest, we had a guided tour of the special bath for the royal family. To our regret, no photography was permitted there.
The bath was used only by "Ten-noh" and his family. (I wrote about "Ten-noh" before, and I'd like you to read it.) At present, there are lots of gorgeous hotels around here, and the special room for the royal family is found in one of those hotels. The bath which we looked at had been used only a few times and was already a historic heritage site. An orifice of exquisite workmanship appears to have spewn out the hot water at that time, but now it's stopped. It's apparently due to the 17 wells used to pump up the hot water for public use. The living room and the lavatory were also open to us. They must actually have been gorgeous in those days, but my house was much better than the royal room.
The place where we were in the picture wasn't equipped with an air conditioner, but a comfortable breeze came in. The design of the building must have been drawn deliberately. A noted writer loved this breeze 100 years ago. His name is Mr. Soseki Natsume, who was teaching English in Matsuyama high school during the Meiji era. I'll write about him and one of his representative works, Bocchan in the next entry.
- (Vocabulary)
- personnel (複数扱い) (集合的に) 職員, 社員, 人員
- hospital personnel 病院職員
- mythology 神話
- egret 白鷺 しらさぎ
- entry [C] (日記の) 記述, (辞書などの) 見出し項目
- her diary entry for May 5 彼女の5月5日の日記の記述
- photography [U] 写真術, 写真撮影; (雑誌・展覧会などでの) 写真 (集合的に用いる); (映画の) 撮影
- black-and-white/color photography モノクロ［カラー］写真撮影
- aerial photography 航空写真
- wildlife/landscape/portrait photography 野生動物の(風景，肖像)写真
- of exquisite workmanship 凝ったつくりの
- exquisite 極めて美しい, 実に見事な; (感覚などが)敏感な, 繊細な
- workmanship (物作りにおける) 腕前, 技量, 仕事(ぶり)
- deliberately 意図的に, 計画的に, 故意に;[同意] on purpose;[反意] accidentally ;慎重に, じっくりと
- representative work 代表作品
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