お風呂, 銭湯 and 温泉

This post is an archive post from 2009 when I was studying abroad at Aoyama Gakuin Daigaku in Tokyo, Japan.

The O-furo (お風呂) is a wonderful way to end the day in Japan. Even more so after all the walking one does while living in Tokyo. What better way than to relax your muscles and joints in VERY hot water and have a casual conversation with people around you. Plus it’s a good way to improve your Japanese.

My first bath in the dorm was a little embarrassing, for the first three seconds. As soon as my body slipped into the hot water and began to loosen, all troubles drifted away. I struck up a conversation with the Japanese student next to me, nothing more than a self introduction, some chit chat about school and day to day life. In America this would have been so awkward, or at least I picture that it would be. Yet I had no shame, what is there to be embarrassed about? Sure you don’t hang out with a bunch of other naked people all the time, but hell everyone is naked. It’s not as if everyone will stare at your crotch, if they did/do then THEY are the weird ones.

I now take a bath everyday and don’t know if I could survive all the walking without one. Even with the benefits of health and learning Japanese a fair number of the other exchange students don’t take baths. They must be fairly self conscious, or scared of the unknown. I would advise them and anyone who has the chance to at least try a public bath/onsen because there is nothing quite like it. Step into the world of the Japanese O-furo and let all worrisome matters melt off your mind.

The following was from a later post, but I've decided to combine them as they cover the same general subject.

Carving

I’ve already blogged about the O-furo before and I’m gonna do it again because 1) I really like taking baths now, and 2) Japanese people really like taking baths. O-furo is the name of the actual tub which you take a bath in. At my dorm it was called the O-furo because it was just a bathtub at the dorm. There are also sento (銭湯) and onsen (温泉), both of which contain O-furo. Sento are bathhouses, usually within the neighborhood, which residents go to to bathe and relax in the water. The sento is not as common today as it was 100, or even 50 years ago. This is due to almost all households having their own baths and plumbing now, which was not available before. I said sento contain O-furo, let me try to explain this. Within the sento are several baths (O-furo) with different features. The ones I’ve seen are: massage bath, medicine bath, standard hot water bath, mineral/onsen style bath, cold bath, electric bath, and a very hot bath.

• Massage baths are basically hot tubs as they have hot water and strong jets to massage your body.
• Medicine baths (薬湯) are baths with some sort of Chinese style herbal medicine. I've been told various ingredients are used such as  どくだみ , しょうぶ , orange peel and ginger among others. Different sento will use different blends of medicine.
• Standard hot water and very hot water baths are both self explanatory.
• Mineral baths are baths with minerals added that mimic a natural hot spring (onsen).
• A cold bath is a bath with really cold water. It also usually has water falling from above so you can put your head under it, kind of like a waterfall. This may be related to the practice of standing under a cold waterfall in nature, called misogi (禊), which is supposed to purify one's body. The cold bath is also usually placed next to the sauna, which most sento have.
• Finally there is the electric bath. Yes, it’s a bath of water with electricity going through it, although it’s a low voltage I’m sure, or at least I hope so. There are of course warnings that if you don’t have a good heart you shouldn’t get in, that’s very reassuring.

A common mistake by foreigners is to think that onsen and sento are the same, which they are not. The difference is that onsen draw their water from hot springs, where sento use ordinary water heated up. Don’t shove sento aside though because they aren’t natural hot springs, they are very relaxing in their own right.

Back in Gion, I put my laptop back in my bag, took out my city map and decided on the best route to take to Gokou-yu, a sento I’d found online. Gokou-yu (五香湯) is a 25 minute walk from Kyoto Station or a shorter 10 minute walk from Tanbaguchi Station. I'd suggest walking from Kyoto Station as it will take you past Nishi Honganji a temple grounds that is free to visit.

After walking across the city I was on my last spurt of energy as I entered the sento and said good evening. I paid about 600 yen for entrance to the sento, a rental towel, shampoo, and soap. This about what it cost at the other sento too. I went in and had the best soak of my life, trying out all the baths, even the electric one. I could only stand to sit in it for about a minute or two because the sensation was so awkward. The electricity makes your muscles flex, kind of like those muscle infomercials that were all the rage about 10 years ago.

The place was really clean and kind of generic looking. The bottom floor had showers and five different O-furo, while the upstairs housed the sauna, a couple showers, and two more O-furo. It was a Friday night around 10pm (they are open until 1am) and the place was fairly packed. About an hour or so after I arrive a couple guys with full body tattoos came in. I’m talking about the whole sleeve, the torso, and onto the legs. Most likely they were yakuza (Japanese Mob), but they didn’t seem very mean or intimidating. They just wanted a nice soak like everyone else.

The next few nights I alternated between Gokou-yu and Funaoka. Funaoka (船岡温泉) had a more atmospheric feeling, with a nice outdoor bath (rotenburo) made of cedar and cool wood carvings on the wall and ceiling in the changing room (pictured). Funaoka is the most famous sento in Kyoto, likely due to it's age (established in 1923), the wood carvings and it's inclusion in Lonely Planet books and various other tourist materials. There are many more foreigners here than the other sento around town, but it is still a lovely place to visit at least once.

Why did I go to these sento so frequently? Why not just take a shower or bath in my hotel room? Well my hotel didn’t exactly have any showers, unless there are secret one’s inside McDonald’s. After my long bath at Gokou-yu, I headed for the closest McDonald’s for my first go at staying the night without a real bed.