A Bath's Tale
Nov. 10th, 2005 10:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
akujunkanAstute readers may remember that I went on a business trip to Shiga prefecture two months ago. We stayed at one of the dormitory/company training facilities of which the Japanese are so fond. Class was held until 5pm each day, after which we were expected to complete a I-have-no-social-life-I'm-Japanese amount of homework. This left us with precious few hours for socialising/meals before the 11pm building curfew.
Alas, the dormitory baths closed at 10pm. I am a night owl who prefers taking her baths right before I head to bed at one or so in the morning. It was inevitable that I would soon find myself wanting to bath after bathing hours had ended.
Now, the Japanese are not exactly reknowned for their tendency to question the rules. Therefore, it is often easy to bypass such rules (if one is so inclined) by simply blatantly breaking them. Thus, on the evening in question I headed down to the baths well after 10pm.
To reiterate: the Japanese are not exactly reknowned for their tendency to question the rules. The door to the public baths was unlocked. The water had not been turned off. Late bathers such as myself were meant to be discouraged from after-hours bathing by the complete lack of lighting; the lights in JIAM are centrally controlled, and the light switches had been disabled. So what's a rule-breakin' foreigner to do?
Why, how about taking the saftey flashlight provided in each dormitory room
and going for a bath?
Which I did each night. I have often lamented the difficulty of explaining onsen or sentou to people who have never been in Japan (as it's difficult to take snapshots of communal naked stranger bathing spaces) but of course that isn't a problem when you've got the place to yourself, so here is your tour of a typical no-frills Japanese sentou.
First you head into the changing area. Clothes go into the little baskets on the left. (Also, notice the time on the clock!)
The doors to the right lead to the washing area, which looks like:
A typical bathing area. Sit on the stools and wash yourself. The buckets (visible in the mirror) are for dumping water over your head so you can rinse without splashing other people. This place provides shampoo and body wash although the cheapest places make you bring your own. From here it's on to:
the bath, where you sit and relax until the water gets too hot to handle. This is a small, no-frills bath, but they can get a lot fancier than this. And finally, a picture from within the bath, facing Flashlight, my lone and constant bathing companion those five nights in September:
Romantic, non?
That will be all.
Alas, the dormitory baths closed at 10pm. I am a night owl who prefers taking her baths right before I head to bed at one or so in the morning. It was inevitable that I would soon find myself wanting to bath after bathing hours had ended.
Now, the Japanese are not exactly reknowned for their tendency to question the rules. Therefore, it is often easy to bypass such rules (if one is so inclined) by simply blatantly breaking them. Thus, on the evening in question I headed down to the baths well after 10pm.
To reiterate: the Japanese are not exactly reknowned for their tendency to question the rules. The door to the public baths was unlocked. The water had not been turned off. Late bathers such as myself were meant to be discouraged from after-hours bathing by the complete lack of lighting; the lights in JIAM are centrally controlled, and the light switches had been disabled. So what's a rule-breakin' foreigner to do?
Why, how about taking the saftey flashlight provided in each dormitory room
and going for a bath?
Which I did each night. I have often lamented the difficulty of explaining onsen or sentou to people who have never been in Japan (as it's difficult to take snapshots of communal naked stranger bathing spaces) but of course that isn't a problem when you've got the place to yourself, so here is your tour of a typical no-frills Japanese sentou.
First you head into the changing area. Clothes go into the little baskets on the left. (Also, notice the time on the clock!)
The doors to the right lead to the washing area, which looks like:
A typical bathing area. Sit on the stools and wash yourself. The buckets (visible in the mirror) are for dumping water over your head so you can rinse without splashing other people. This place provides shampoo and body wash although the cheapest places make you bring your own. From here it's on to:
the bath, where you sit and relax until the water gets too hot to handle. This is a small, no-frills bath, but they can get a lot fancier than this. And finally, a picture from within the bath, facing Flashlight, my lone and constant bathing companion those five nights in September:
Romantic, non?
That will be all.
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no subject
on 2005-11-10 02:10 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2005-11-14 06:23 am (UTC)It was great. Still, I was just a bit paranoid that they had some other method of figuring out I was there. ;p
no subject
on 2005-11-10 04:15 pm (UTC)And by the way... good job on taking the pictures before changing. I know several people who would've gotten naked and then started taking pictures, not thinking about all the mirrors...
no subject
on 2005-11-14 06:24 am (UTC)no subject
on 2005-11-10 11:16 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2005-11-11 12:31 am (UTC)no subject
on 2005-11-14 06:26 am (UTC)The sento with the lavendar bath was the same idea as this one, yes, but a little bit bigger and with three different types of baths.
BTW, your husband mentioned a post about the baby!!!! but I don't see it. Where/when did ya make it?
no subject
on 2005-11-14 07:04 am (UTC)no subject
on 2005-11-11 03:00 am (UTC)this cracked me up. (more than the clock, actually ^^) and it's so true XD
thanks sooo much for the tour!♥ alas, i can only enjoy Japan through pictures. ;_;