It's getting hot in here......

The guidebook  advised us that we must visit an onsen when in Japan. An onsen is a natural hot spring bath & it's something the Japanese have turned into almost a  religion.  The town of Kinosaki is famous for its classic onsen experience,  so we headed there. .
We struggled to find somewhere to stay in Kinosaki. There was only 1 hotel that still had vacancies & by the reviews I could see why. Normally I only book places with a minimum 8 pt review score – although you may recall one of the places we stayed in in Russia scored 9.4 despite looking like a place the police visited more often than the postman. Anyway this hotel scored 6.5 but we wanted to go badly enough that we were willing to take a chance.
When we arrived in Kinosaki we were met by an over-zealous tourist info lady who 'instructed’ us to fill out a questionnaire on departure about how we found the town.  It's quite a compact place with 2 main streets, a river, a canal & of course  onsen.  We arrived at what we guessed was the hotel but there was no sign & when we entered it was like the Mary Celeste – a vacant discarded reception & still no clue as to whether this was our hotel. Eventually I spotted a small sign pointing to the next floor so we went up & found reception with a man who, through the foggy haze of his cigarette smoke, confirmed it was our hotel. Using as few words as possible he checked us in & gave us & our room key - 309. I hadn't clicked the relevance of the room number until we were in it & I saw the stains on the carpet - that's when I recalled a review saying whatever you do don't stay in room 309, the carpet is awful. Well it was awful. The room,  in fact the whole hotel was tired, neglected & grubby. However we knew it wouldn't be good, we had already paid (cash up front) & we suspected no rooms were any better. Tracking the positives, the bed was clean & surprisingly comfortable.It was early evening when we left our hovel, sorry hotel to explore town. The first thing we noticed was the large number of people walking around dressed in Yukata’s (a light cotton kimono) with traditional geta (sandals), strolling along  heading to/ from an onsen. The tourist map indicated lots of bars & restaurants dotted all around town but, whether it was because of golden week, we struggled to find much open. Eventually we found a restaurant that screamed 1970’s. Every chair/barstool/sofa was covered in grey crushed velvet & the walls decorated with gold crushed velvet. We were the only people in there, I think – it was hard to see anything but crushed velvet. The food was fine but I needed to get out & back to 2017.
The following day it was our turn to don our Yukata’s. Mr L was v uncomfortable walking the streets wearing what he described as a ‘dressing gown’ & badly fitting geta but I assured him we would blend in once we got into the Main Street. However, it seemed the other yukata wearers were having a lie-in & the only other people out & about were locals. We felt v conspicuous. There were no instructions about what to do when we arrived at our first onsen so we just headed off behind our respective blue/red curtains. There is a huge amount of etiquette to be observed when visiting an onsen, most of which I breached on my first visit.  The first problem I encountered was with the towel. No clothes are worn in the bath area but you should hold your handkerchief sized towel in front of you, however you can't leave the towel  into the bath area. Where was I meant to put it?  On your head I later discovered. When I was reunited with Mr L he had had the same dilemma but he had also nearly blacked out from the heat. We decided to adjourn to a restaurant for brunch, a regroup & plenty of water before our next onsen. This one had an outside cave area to bathe in which was quite relaxing & despite the water temperature it felt cooler so no overheating. After that we went back to the hotel for a lie down – it was exhausting jumping in and out of hot water – before heading back out to our final onsen. This one had a bath on the roof where you got a lovely cool breeze as you slowly boiled in the water.
The next day we checked out of our hotel &  handed our completed questionnaire in at the tourist information as ordered. I'm not sure my request for more bars & less velvet will be heeded. Next stop Osaka.