Onsen (温泉)

Onsen (hot spring baths) are quite possibly my favourite thing about Japan; they’re up there with sushi and the Shinkansen. They’re a benefit of the country being volcanically active, located at a spaghetti junction of plate-tectonic boundaries. Japan literally has thousands of onsen dotted along its length and breadth due to all of this underground thermal activity. Stand alone onsen houses and ryokan pop up wherever there is geothermically heated oyu (お湯, literally honourable hot water). They come in as many shapes and sizes as the punters. I’ve bathed indoors, outdoors, in a small hut, by the sea in Sakurajima, in view of snow monkeys in Nagano Prefecture, and even in volcanically heated sand in Ibusuki.

Yufuin, Oita Prefecture

Most onsen are mainly found in the countryside, geographically removed from hectic urban life. Such havens of tranquillity are blissfully free of the rules and regulations that make life a minefield of potential social blunders for the average Japanese. This liberation from the structure of polite society is quite possibly what makes taking onsen such a popular pastime. As the warmth of the water penetrates your body, any disappointments and worries are washed away into the mineral-rich water. It’s this mellow atmosphere that I love so much.

Jigokudani, Yudanaka, Nagano Prefecture

One thing must be stressed: you bathe naked! For a gaikokujin (外国人, literally outside person) such as myself, getting naked with total strangers is not exactly the cultural norm. I was rather apprehensive about my first dip in my birthday suit but it soon became quite natural.

Furusato Onsen, Sakurajima, Kagoshima Prefecture

Enjoying onsen is quite simple. Leave your clothes in the dressing room, place a tenugui (手拭い), a modesty towel, over your most private bits and pieces, enter the bathing room, and go and sit down on a wooden or plastic stool next to a shower on the wall. Thoroughly wash your body (making sure not to spray the jet of water emanating from the shower on the person sitting next to you… I’ve been guilty of that a few times) and rinse all the suds from your body. If there’s no shower, use one of the available buckets to ladle hot water over your body, while outside the bath of course. The bath water must not become contaminated with soap or dirty water.

Ibusuki Sand Onsen, Ibusuki, Kagoshima Prefecture

Once thoroughly clean, try to enter the water as gracefully as possible, trying not to create a tidal wave! In the very likely event that the water is too hot, as you ease your body into the water, it’s OK to murmur “atsui” (hot) and pull facial contortions those at the World Gurning Championship would be proud of. Your skin will be tingling all over by now in the hot water. You sit, relax and cook while your worries melt away. At this point, I like to place my folded up tenugui on my head, just because it is what other Japanese too. It’s also rumoured to prevent bathers from passing out after being in the onsen for too long! It’s that easy! I also feel that if you do commit a gaffe against onsen etiquette, bathers are generally in their own little world, too busy trying to de-stress and forget about work to give a monkey’s.