Japanese Hotel Experience

Upon arriving at our hotel in Wajima, we were taken to our room on the 7th floor with a balcony overlooking the sea. A lady showed us into the room, with tatame mats on the floor and a low table with four floor-level seats around it. She proceeded to explain the hotel amenities and then served us tea and gave us all yukatas to wear around the hotel! Talk about service! While we were at dinner, someone came and replaced the table with futons.
The dinner they had prepared for us in the banquet hall was fabulous!!! So much wonderful Japanese cuisine!! Everything was so delicious, the cooked seafood, the sashimi, the vegetables, the tofu dishes, the soups, the rice and a dessert pudding! There was even a full fish head, complete with sharp little teeth!! And I ventured to eat the eye ball! (only after asking if it was in fact edible).
Before I could even finish everything on the tray, the Taiko drumming performance began. Taiko drumming began hundreds of years ago when a coastal village was threatened by a major army. The night before the attack, they wore masks and used seaweed to appear larger. Then they brought drums to the beach, lit fires and began drumming and dancing. When the army looked down from the mountain, the captain proclaimed that there were a bunch of monsters and the soldiers lost confidence. The next day, the villagers won the battle.
After dinner, we went to the Karaoke bar and even sang 2 songs in Japanese! Then some people were going to the beach so I hung out there with them for a while. The water was surprisingly warm (well, some thought it was cold...) and some of them went swimming!
At 11:00, I went to the onsen (Japanese-style hot springs) with Vanessa and Camille (from France). The hot springs were open 24 hours! They are separated between men's and women's because in Japan, you don't wear a bathing suit to the hot springs. It's more like a public bath. As foreigners we're not used to that, but we got more comfortable with it after being the in the baths for a bit. First, you sit on a little stool at one of the shower spots (all lined up like sinks in a regular bathroom, complete with mirrors!) and wash your self down. Then you enter into the hot pools. We stayed in there until after midnight, so relaxing.