Bath houses

Recently I was invited to go to an onsen, or a hot spring bath house. If you’re not familiar with this concept, it’s a public bath house (typically gender segregated) where you wash first, bathe and soak next, and then wash again before you leave. And everyone walks around stark naked. No towels except the kind you set on your head (the point of which I know not).

It was a spur of the moment invitation at 8 o’clock at night after dinner with a group of people I’d just met, to which my initial response was, “There’s one open this late?”

There was indeed.

The appeal was the nearby vicinity, the affordable pricing, and the fact that it had only opened a few months ago, so it was still “clean”. All things considered, I don’t think I’ll be wanting to set foot inside an older onsen…

With that in mind, we headed off and arrived at an artificial bath house that looked similar to a small shopping center. It even had a small arcade, and a café loaded with comic books to read. I don’t know how other bath houses operate, but this one in particular gave you electronic wrist bands that served as your wallet: If you ordered something from the café, for example, you scanned the wrist band and your total would be rung up at the cashier when you were finished with the entire experience.

After we were given our towels (you can bring your own or rent them) and wrist bands, we headed upstairs to the locker/changing room. There was a vanity area for drying your hair and applying face and hand lotion, and past that was the changing area where the sea of naked women began. As an American visiting a public bath house for the first time, this was of course a little unnerving. I am not used to such quantities of nudity, and what made it worse was the fact that I was the only foreigner there, so there was a slight fear that I would be stared at more than anyone else.

Amazingly enough, there was no open staring. Less amazing but still worth noting, nobody approached me and tried to test out their English skills. Everyone kept to themselves or their little groups that they’d come with, much like my group did. I will admit that while I wasn’t truly staring, I did observe the different shapes and sizes of bodies around me (I’m an artist; it’s what we do…).

After washing and soaking in one of the hot tubs, the four of us took a dip in the children’s pool, playing with the massive amount of rubber duckies (I’m not kidding, there were all sorts of sizes of these rubber ducks in the children’s pool) and squirting each other with them like the mature adults that we were. For as late as it was, there were a considerable number of young girls milling about with their moms. I found that interesting.

When we’d finished demonstrating our collective mental age, we then stepped outside (open air) to where the acid baths were. There were three varieties, all of which had the water temperature gauge in the corners. Each pool had only a few degrees centigrade difference at most, but it was still noticeable. Keep in mind that this was a lukewarm summer evening, as well. The first, the largest pool, was specifically labeled as the low concentration acid bath. I took care not to get my hair wet with it, as well as to keep my gold necklace above the water line, just in case. There was a large screen TV at the end of the pool with a drama of some sort playing.

We sat there for a few minutes and then moved over to the silk water tub. Unlike the acid bath, the silk tub had micro bubbles and a murkier appearance. It was slightly warmer than the acid bath, and the tub was raised and thus much smaller. It’s so named on account of the water’s ability to leave your skin “silky smooth”, and it did just that! My skin felt very soft after getting out of there.

Afterwards we moved to the individual buckets. The water seemed like normal bath water and not acid or silk water, so I am not entirely sure what was so special about these. But when I say buckets, I mean giant vase-like things that you climb inside and sit in, spilling water over the edges and letting it pour back over you. The placard talked about the history of these things, saying that at one point they were used for bathing but later became torture devices or death traps, because they were made of iron and heated with open flame. The placard made a point to assure us that such a thing was not a concern now! These were made of ceramic and not heated over an open flame! If I had had my phone as well as been allowed to use the camera function (expressly forbidden, as you might guess), I would have taken a picture of it.

Then it was off to the saunas. We first went into the salt sauna, which was a small room with plastic chairs and a basin filled with salt in the middle. As one might expect with a sauna, it was hot and steamy inside, and it smelled like salt, which just about smacks you in the face as you walk in. You can then take some salt from the basin and rub it over your skin to exfoliate, etc. Once we had done that, we rinsed off and went to the steam sauna, which was much larger and had tiered floor seating so that you could watch TV while you broiled. We only managed to stay in there for a minute or two, as it was much warmer than the salt room. The gauge, I believe, read 60 degrees Centigrade, which is just ridiculously warm. For comparison, the warmest of the baths was about 42 degrees. Between it and the humidity, I felt as if I was broasting in there and could barely breathe.

There was a pool of cold water (about 16 degrees) but we opted not to use it. Instead we got some water to drink from the locker room cooler, and then washed the bath water off before going to get dressed. Once dressed and dry again, we went downstairs to the café and got some dessert. We all got ice cream of some sort, but there was quite a variety to choose from, alongside actual food and meals. What’s more, by the cashier and the arcade is a very small produce section. (!!) Other than needing a place to sleep, it’s very possible to live there quite affordably, it turns out.

After paying, we made our way out and headed home. All in all, it was a very relaxing experience. Getting used to the nudity happened quickly, although it’s still fairly unpleasant to think about. That being said, I’d look forward to going again with the girls. :)