So - Japanese baths. Everybody's got questions. Short answers:
• Yes, nakedness is involved
• Communal baths are segregated
• Japanese baths are for relaxing, not for getting clean.
Basic hotels don't usually have communal baths. In the bathroom, in addition to the sink and toilet there will be a tub. It is shorter, narrower and deeper than a standard North American tub. The bathroom floor is usually raised to accommodate this - you step up into the bathroom and are very careful about not falling out into the room at night!
The idea is to have a good scrub and shower and then, once you are nice and clean you fill the tub and relax. The bath is a place where clean people sit and relax.
Some high rise hotels have communal baths. They are usually on the top floor and/or the roof. They usually open at 3:00 pm and remain open through the night until about 10:00 am, being closed for cleaning during the day.
Every hotel we've stayed at in Japan has provided a robe or pyjamas, whether or not they have communal baths. When it is time for a bath you put on your robe or pj's, gather up your towels, put on your hotel issued slippers and head for the bath. The hotel provides one regular bath towel and a smaller towel. It is about 6 inches wide and 18 inches long and is a more loosely woven terry fabric than a regular towel. It goes with you to the bath.
Fortunately for those of us who are illiterate the Japanese are rigorous about colour coding men's and women's facilities - blue curtains always mean men's, red always means women's. Same thing for public toilets. We've also learned the kanji for Man and Woman to be double certain!
Upon arrival you leave your slippers on a rack by the front. There's usually a locker to stow valuables. Next up is the dressing room. Racks on the wall hold baskets, into which you put your bath towel and all your clothes. There is a counter here with sinks and hair dryers and hand lotion and hairbrushes for use later.
From the dressing room we pass through a door into the bathing area. To one side will be a row of cleaning stations. Each one has a low stool, a mirror, hand held shower sprayer, taps, a basin, and big bottles of soap, shampoo and conditioner. The stool is very low, it is better than crouching, but after a long day it is a long way down. Anyhow, you settle yourself and begin the washing. Soap and water, using your towel for your back you wash yourself. Wash or at least thoroughly rinse your hair. Take a surreptitious peak around. Everyone else is still washing. Rinse off every speck of soap. Start over and wash all of yourself again. Thoroughly. By the time I have washed myself as thoroughly as I possibly can and those around me are still not done I usually think 'screw it, I'm going in'. Get up carefully - it's a long way down and you and everything around you is wet. Rinse your wash station down completely and return your stool and wash basin to its original position.
Some hotels have an outdoor bath. You may be thirteen floors up, but when you step outside the effect is that you have stumbled upon a rock lined pool in the forest. The area is screened, so private. The only downside to the outside pool is that is usually so freakin' hot that I spend more time getting ready to bath than I actually do in the pool. Your hand towel comes with you, but never actually goes into the bath - wrap it around your hair, fold into a square and put on your head or leave it on a rock by the side.
The water pours constantly into the bath, draining out over one or another low edge as people get in. The water is crystal clear in these baths.
Inside there is another bath, usually not quite so fiercely hot. A fancier place may also have a cold pool and a sauna. A less fancy place may have just the one bath - sometimes quite large, sometimes the size of a pool table. Often I'm the only one in the place, but sometimes I have company. Once I'm done it is back to the dressing room to reverse the process. After a day seeing the sights it is sue nice to have a hot bath before bedtime.
I don't have any pictures from the communal baths because, as you imagine, cameras are a big no-no. But, I'm not done with the subject. We stayed two nights at a hot-spring spa, which merits a posting all of its own. And for that I have some pictures, so stay tuned!
Tuesday, November 13, 2012
Sunday, November 11, 2012
Visiting the volcano
After several days in the southern part of Kyushu island we headed a little further north. Mt Aso sits in an enormous caldera about 60 minutes from Kumamoto. We took the Trans Kyushu Limited Express to get there, which turned out to be a special train. It is only two cars long, kind of vintage in style and it goes along a fantastically scenic route.
Early this year there were terrific rainstorms in this area with a lot of road and rail damage and we could see evidence of that as we went along. In order to climb up and into the caldera the train took a series of switchbacks, so we'd go forward, then backward, then forward to climb up.
The train dropped us at Aso Station, where we checked our luggage and caught a bus to take us up the mountain. It was a twisty turny trip made all the more so by the number of road washouts from earlier this year that reduced the traffic to alternating one way.
We could see the gas cloud rising from the mountain top and there was a definite smell to the air, even down at the town. Once off the bus we walked through the gift shop only to discovered that the cable car to the top was not operating due to dangerous gas levels. Well. What a disappointment. We were looking around the shop about ten minutes later when we heard a rumble and excited voices - it's open! Everyone ran upstairs, bought a ticket and crammed onto the cable car for the short ride up.
And what a sight! It was fantastic. Below us was a boiling aquamarine lake with plumes of gases rising up. The walls of the caldera are streaked with minerals that have precipitated out from the plume. All the tourists were running around taking pictures as quickly as possible. Souvenir venders were selling big chunks of sulphur and there were technicians in gas masks taking air samples.
After about 15 minutes a voice came on the loudspeaker and everyone started back down toward the cable car building. Even without speaking Japanese it was pretty clear that the message was 'get out of here now'. The people on bus tours got back on their buses and many people got back on the cable car. But some of us remained and walked to another lookout for views out across the main caldera - it is the biggest caldera in the world, some 28 miles across, with the new active volcano off to one side. Eventually the loudspeaker started up again and the wardens started blowing their whistles - time for everyone to go. We were very happy to have been able to go up and see it all. Sometimes the wind direction closes the peak for days and today when we passed back through Aso it was foggy and rainy and we met people who had been up and seen nothing. It was all my little geologist could have dreamed of.
Early this year there were terrific rainstorms in this area with a lot of road and rail damage and we could see evidence of that as we went along. In order to climb up and into the caldera the train took a series of switchbacks, so we'd go forward, then backward, then forward to climb up.
The train dropped us at Aso Station, where we checked our luggage and caught a bus to take us up the mountain. It was a twisty turny trip made all the more so by the number of road washouts from earlier this year that reduced the traffic to alternating one way.
We could see the gas cloud rising from the mountain top and there was a definite smell to the air, even down at the town. Once off the bus we walked through the gift shop only to discovered that the cable car to the top was not operating due to dangerous gas levels. Well. What a disappointment. We were looking around the shop about ten minutes later when we heard a rumble and excited voices - it's open! Everyone ran upstairs, bought a ticket and crammed onto the cable car for the short ride up.
And what a sight! It was fantastic. Below us was a boiling aquamarine lake with plumes of gases rising up. The walls of the caldera are streaked with minerals that have precipitated out from the plume. All the tourists were running around taking pictures as quickly as possible. Souvenir venders were selling big chunks of sulphur and there were technicians in gas masks taking air samples.
After about 15 minutes a voice came on the loudspeaker and everyone started back down toward the cable car building. Even without speaking Japanese it was pretty clear that the message was 'get out of here now'. The people on bus tours got back on their buses and many people got back on the cable car. But some of us remained and walked to another lookout for views out across the main caldera - it is the biggest caldera in the world, some 28 miles across, with the new active volcano off to one side. Eventually the loudspeaker started up again and the wardens started blowing their whistles - time for everyone to go. We were very happy to have been able to go up and see it all. Sometimes the wind direction closes the peak for days and today when we passed back through Aso it was foggy and rainy and we met people who had been up and seen nothing. It was all my little geologist could have dreamed of.
Thursday, November 8, 2012
One more for the list
Do you have a personal list of crazy things you have done? We added to ours today, because today we took the train to Ibusuki to take a sand bath.
Ibusuki is about a 90 minute train ride south of Kagoshima - it is a small town of about 40,000, looking kind of down on its heels. But.... They have hot springs heated by a local volcano, and those springs run out onto the beach. People come from all over to be buried in the sand and have a good steam..
We arrived at the reception desk and were issued yukatas (cotton robes), small towels and told to change into the robes - no underwear! Okay,then. We went off to the change rooms where we changed into our robes and flip flops, then met on the walkway outside. When the tide is out and the weather right they dig little trenches right on the beach, but the tide was in so went into an enclosure where the attendants were waiting with their shovels. They instructed us how to get settled, with our towels around our necks. Once we were settled they proceeded to shovel the hot sand over us. It was surprisingly heavy and quite hot. We were told to stay put for ten minutes.
It was not the thing for people with claustrophobia, that's for sure. It seemed like a very long ten minutes, but eventually it was time and we sat up and brushed the sand off. At that point we returned to the main building for a big rinse off, and then into the usual Japanese bath process. Since we had a showered this morning, had a bath at noon and another bath tonight before bed we are very squeaky clean. And tomorrow we head off to a town of hot springs, so more hot bath adventures await. We'll be without Internet for a few days, so we'll check in again next week.
Till then, here are the pictures from today's adventure:
Ibusuki is about a 90 minute train ride south of Kagoshima - it is a small town of about 40,000, looking kind of down on its heels. But.... They have hot springs heated by a local volcano, and those springs run out onto the beach. People come from all over to be buried in the sand and have a good steam..
We arrived at the reception desk and were issued yukatas (cotton robes), small towels and told to change into the robes - no underwear! Okay,then. We went off to the change rooms where we changed into our robes and flip flops, then met on the walkway outside. When the tide is out and the weather right they dig little trenches right on the beach, but the tide was in so went into an enclosure where the attendants were waiting with their shovels. They instructed us how to get settled, with our towels around our necks. Once we were settled they proceeded to shovel the hot sand over us. It was surprisingly heavy and quite hot. We were told to stay put for ten minutes.
It was not the thing for people with claustrophobia, that's for sure. It seemed like a very long ten minutes, but eventually it was time and we sat up and brushed the sand off. At that point we returned to the main building for a big rinse off, and then into the usual Japanese bath process. Since we had a showered this morning, had a bath at noon and another bath tonight before bed we are very squeaky clean. And tomorrow we head off to a town of hot springs, so more hot bath adventures await. We'll be without Internet for a few days, so we'll check in again next week.
Till then, here are the pictures from today's adventure:
Wednesday, November 7, 2012
Another city, another meal.
We're in Kagoshima, where they grow their radishes big and their sweet potatoes purple. We made a reservation at a restaurant not far from our hotel, and presented ourselves at 6:00. It was early enough that it wasn't too busy and the staff had a little more time to explain things to us. We wanted to try local dishes, and they had a set dinner that covered pretty much everything. A mere twelve courses - they didn't seem to find it unusual that we would order one meal and share it, which was good 'cause it was a pile of food. We ordered shochu to drink, which is a form of firewater distilled from sweet potatoes - it was actually pretty good and went well with the food.
We almost wound up with the dreaded chicken sashimi, but caught that in time and had the tuna instead. There's always fish and seafood in a Japanese meal, but we're in pork country here, so we had several variations on the pork theme.
Dinner included:
Salted fish guts (tiny little dish of something salty - if we hadn't known the name we wouldn't have blinked at it)
Kibinago sushi - little silver fish fillets serve raw with a yummy sauce
Lettuce with salad dressing
A tray of mysterious pickles
Tonkatsu - breaded pork cutlet with sesame sauce
Bonita sashimi
Tonkotsu - braised pork stew with potatoes and veg, not to be confused with the pork cutlet
Satsuma pork ribs
2 large cooked snails and cucumbers in vinegar
Chicken miso soup
More mysterious pickles
Sakesushi - raw fish and seafood over rice tossed with a lot of sake
Dessert - sweet potato jelly made from bean jam was the menu description - one piece of purple jello, one sort of whitish, neither a big taste sensation.
We had a great time - enjoyed the food, enjoyed the place, and then finished the evening with a visit to the communal bath on the roof of the hotel (communal, but segregated)
We almost wound up with the dreaded chicken sashimi, but caught that in time and had the tuna instead. There's always fish and seafood in a Japanese meal, but we're in pork country here, so we had several variations on the pork theme.
Dinner included:
Salted fish guts (tiny little dish of something salty - if we hadn't known the name we wouldn't have blinked at it)
Kibinago sushi - little silver fish fillets serve raw with a yummy sauce
Lettuce with salad dressing
A tray of mysterious pickles
Tonkatsu - breaded pork cutlet with sesame sauce
Bonita sashimi
Tonkotsu - braised pork stew with potatoes and veg, not to be confused with the pork cutlet
Satsuma pork ribs
2 large cooked snails and cucumbers in vinegar
Chicken miso soup
More mysterious pickles
Sakesushi - raw fish and seafood over rice tossed with a lot of sake
Dessert - sweet potato jelly made from bean jam was the menu description - one piece of purple jello, one sort of whitish, neither a big taste sensation.
We had a great time - enjoyed the food, enjoyed the place, and then finished the evening with a visit to the communal bath on the roof of the hotel (communal, but segregated)
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