The Naked Truth

Yesterday I experienced a new piece of Japanese culture that I had been wanting to experience, but was very scared to try. THE ONSEN. For those of you who this is a new term, let me explain. The Japanese people are not afraid of nudity. So one of their favorite past times is to all go and take a bath together. Granted the men and women are almost always separated, in cases where they are not, bathing suits are worn.

So last night after church I was going to go get something to eat with two girls, Michele and Alyssa. And as we were trying to decide where to go, Alyssa was telling us about a new onsen she had discovered, fairly close by. Alyssa and Michele have been to lots of onsens and never pass up the opportunity to go. So we all decided it would be fun. On the way they enlightened me on onsen etiquette. First, you go in and pay, they give you two towels. One is a little bigger than a hand towel and the other is regular bath sized. And they also give you a locker key to lock up your clothes. You keep the hand towel with you to use for modesty. The big towel stays in the locker to dry off when you are ready to leave. Then you go into the locker room and get undressed and then go to another area, where you sit down and wash off. They provide you with soap and shampoo. Once you are all clean you go into the actual onsen area with all of the different baths. They range in temperature from frigidly cold to extremely hot.

So we made the trek to this onsen. And by the time we got their I was definitely hot and sweaty and ready for a bath, but not entirely sure I was ready for a bath with a bunch of strangers. But we went in and paid. It costs 900 Yen, ($9) which I thought was pretty good. They gave us our towels and we went and cleaned off and went into the pool area. The first pool we got into was 41 C. The girls had promised me that all of the Japanese people we saw would ignore us. They were wrong. No sooner had we stepped into the pool than a woman came up to us and asked if she could talk to us. We said yes. She turned directly to me and said "First time?" What was it written on my face? We talked to her for a few minutes. And then decided it was time to try out the other pools.

Next we ventured to the outdoor pools. They were hot. And there was a waterfall that you could stand under and it beat on your back and shoulders and felt like a massage. There was a tiny little pool only big enough for about five people we sat there for a while, but we realized that we were scaring all the small children away, so we moved on.

We went and sat in the big outdoor pool for a while. It was completely surrounded by trees and vegetation and was landscaped beautifully. Then we went back inside and found the frigid pool. It was 17 C (62 F). I stuck my feet in, but that was about as far as I could go. It felt really nice to poor the cold water on my towel and then put it on my head.

We found a coolish pool that we sat in for a while. It was 37 C (98.6 F). Again we scared away small children so we decided to move on. They had a massaging pool, where you lean back and these jets massage your back. It felt great. As soon as we got in there the lone Japanese woman who was enjoying it got up and left. I guess she didn't like gaijin. This pool was about 41 C. It felt nice.

There were other pools that we didn't make it to like the 44.7 C (112 F). That is just ridiculous. And we skipped the jacuzzi pool too.

We decided to end our journey where it had begun, so we went back to the first pool we had tried. Alyssa had told us that in the corner there was an area where the water was electrically charged "the pulse bath". We saw a Japanese woman sitting in the area for at least five minutes. She was definitely there longer. After we tried it, we couldn't figure out how she had stayed in so long. I approached the area with trepidation. I stuck my hand in and nothing felt weird so I tried to sit down and as soon as I did I jumped back out. EVERYONE around started laughing including my "friends". One woman was biting her lip very hard trying not to laugh at me. I went to sit with my friends in the regular water for a bit. Then two Japanese women approached the area, they jumped out about as quickly as I had. I ended up returning to the pulse bath because I wanted to actually sit in the electric water. I sat down for about 5 seconds before I got out again. We convinced Michele to try it out. She lasted a bit longer than me but not much.
It was the strangest sensation of thousands of blunt needles stabbing you. I wouldn't describe it as painful, just extremely odd feeling.

At that point we decided it was time to put our clothes back on on and find some food as was initially the plan. After getting dressed they provide you with an area to primp and fix your hair, with hair dryers and brushes and everything you could need. They also had a vending machine with different milks. I tried the regular milk and the fruit milk. The fruit one tasted kind of like a smoothie; I liked it.

For dinner we ate at the onsen in their restaurant. We all had miso katsu which is a specialty of Nagoya. Every city seems to have some sort of specialty food dish. It was fried pork with lettuce, cabbage, potato salad, rice, fruit cup, and this delicious sweet miso sauce. And miso soup with baby mushrooms.

Then it was time for the long walk home. I thoroughly enjoyed the experience and we are planning on going back next week.

Photos to come.