Well, you see, I wanted to wait until I had done something truly
Japanese, something I could never do back in Ireland. Now for a moment, it was
almost the time when I was sitting in a restaurant and I was handed a fork, then
all of a sudden I thought to myself, ‘How the hell am I supposed to eat with
this?’ It quickly passed, but it was a bizarre feeling to have as I struggled
to grip this basic utensil in any fashion that would have enabled food to get
to my mouth.
No. Something that I could never do back in Ireland (or
never thought I would do anywhere) was strip naked in front of a load of
Japanese businessmen and enjoy a hot bath. Now you can bring a little towel into
the Onsen in order to cover whatever it is you feel like covering, but I felt
like meh! I’m naked now, might as well just embrace it. I was also convinced
that if I brought in a towel I would just somehow end up losing it or leaving
it behind. It’s probably hard to mislay the only item you have with you while you’re
wandering around naked, but I wasn’t going to take that chance.
It only cost about 500yen to go the Onsen and you can pretty
much stay as long as you want. Once inside, just strip off, put all your clothes
into a basket and onto the shelf, then off to the bathing area where you can
shower, sauna, and hot or cold soak to your heart’s content. You see guys young
and old here, but there does seem to be more old guys enjoying the soothing waters
than others. After you have given yourself a good scrub in the shower area, and
don’t forget to clean down after you use it! You are free to just take on all
the hot and cold water you want. Free and easy.
The Onsen I went to had a large outdoor pool, you could get
a good fifty men in there at a push I’d say, and a less rocky, not as deep,
indoor pool. There was a small icy-cold dipping area and a sauna with a TV and
a twelve minute clock. There was figure-skating on the television, and I didn’t
find out what happens if you stay in there longer than twelve minutes, I had to
get out as it was just too damn hot! I stayed for around an hour and a half and
being honest after about two minutes you don’t even care you’re naked, and in
fact you probably think, ‘why haven’t I thought of this before?’
So you finish up and head back to dry off in the changing
room. At this stage you are oblivious to all the nakedness going on around you,
or even that you are naked yourself (well at least I was). Until… I turned
around at one stage, in all my ‘glory’, only to be facing the cleaning lady who
had just come in the door. Suddenly as this sixty-odd year old woman is passing
me with her mop, I am hit by the notion that I should probably get dressed. She
muttered a general ‘thanks for your custom’ greeting as she passed me and went
about her work. Then I realised, it’s nothing she hasn’t seen before, probably
a million times before. She’s probably seen more old man penis than I ever
will.
I get dressed and walk towards the restaurant, all this
nakedness is hungry work, and they do a good ramen with onsen egg I hear. While
I’m not about to turn going to the Onsen into a daily thing (even though it is
pretty cheap….), I will definitely go back. Plus I would encourage everyone
else to give it a try. I mean, if you can’t get stark naked with a bunch of
other hardworking people every now and then, why are you even getting up in the
morning?
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