Kicked Out
gomichild and her husband went through some trouble to find an onsen that we could go to today. The place looked pleasant enough, and after a little trouble with buying a ticket from the vending machine, we grabbed locker keys and went in.
After disrobing and a quick shower, we sunk ourselves into a the small indoor pool first to warm up, and looking foward to trying the springs outside. However, 2 minutes in, a staff came and asked me to remove the small towel I had wrapped around me. No problem. The problem came when she pointed out gomichild had a small tattoo on her back, and there were house rules that people with tattooes could not use the onsen.
We promptly stomped out, changed and gomichild went outside to demand our money back from the manager. After some weak attempts to justify their actions, the manager gave us our money back. The really annoying thing was that he kept swivelling his head towards me even thought gomichild was the one doing all the talking. I finally said to him that I didn't speak Japanese.
The whole incident left us rather annoyed and a little angry. I think the real reason why we were asked to leave was because we were obviously foreign; gomichild had never had any problems before in onsen prior to this, so the manager's weak attempt to claim that all Japanese establishments had this rule was definitely not true.
We did have a pretty good time afterwards shopping and having a nice sushi dinner, so the day was not a total loss. But we're certainly not going back to Korona World again in a hurry.
After disrobing and a quick shower, we sunk ourselves into a the small indoor pool first to warm up, and looking foward to trying the springs outside. However, 2 minutes in, a staff came and asked me to remove the small towel I had wrapped around me. No problem. The problem came when she pointed out gomichild had a small tattoo on her back, and there were house rules that people with tattooes could not use the onsen.
We promptly stomped out, changed and gomichild went outside to demand our money back from the manager. After some weak attempts to justify their actions, the manager gave us our money back. The really annoying thing was that he kept swivelling his head towards me even thought gomichild was the one doing all the talking. I finally said to him that I didn't speak Japanese.
The whole incident left us rather annoyed and a little angry. I think the real reason why we were asked to leave was because we were obviously foreign; gomichild had never had any problems before in onsen prior to this, so the manager's weak attempt to claim that all Japanese establishments had this rule was definitely not true.
We did have a pretty good time afterwards shopping and having a nice sushi dinner, so the day was not a total loss. But we're certainly not going back to Korona World again in a hurry.