Bathing is a big deal in Japan, and be it a scenic onsen hot spring, a neighhorbood sento bath or just an ordinary household tub, bathing Japanese style is a pleasure. Japanese wax lyrical about the joys of hot water (yu) and dub even the ordinary tub with a honorific (o-furo), and a visit to a Japanese hot spring should be on the agenda of every visitor.
Onsen, quite literally "hot springs", are the pinnacle of the Japanese bathing experience. Cluster of hot spring inns pop up wherever there's a suitable source of hot water, and in volcanic Japan, they're everywhere. The most memorable onsen experience is often the rotenburo, literally "dew sky bath", which is located outside with views of the surrounding natural scenery. While the baths are usually large and shared, some swankier accommodations offer, often for an additional fee, reservable baths for you and yours alone, known as family baths, racier "romance baths" or just plain old reserved baths (kashikiri-furo). Onsen baths can be either in standalone buildings available for anybody (sotoyu), or private guest-only baths inside your lodgings (uchiyu).
While most onsen are run commercially and charge fees for entry (¥500-1000 is typical), especially in remote areas there are free publicly maintained baths that offer minimal facilities but, more often than not, stunning views to make up for it. Many of these are mixed (kon'yoku), but while men still happily traipse into these naked, if holding a towel in front of their dangly bits, it's a rare woman who'll enter one without a bathing suit these days — not that anybody will object if she does! Commercial operations with konyoku baths tend to enforce bathing suits for both sexes.
Note that many onsen prohibit the entry of visitors with tattoos. Intended to keep out yakuza gangsters (who often sport full-back tattoos), the rule is usually applied with a modicum of common sense, but heavily tattood visitors will, at the very least, receive curious looks and may be asked to leave. A good idea to avoid some stares is to cover a tattoo with a bandaid before going into an onsen, but even the bandaid might gain some stares from a few people.
Sentō and spas
Sentō are communal bath houses found in any large city. Intended for people without their own home tub, they are typically quite utilitarian and are slowly dying out as Japan continues its break-neck modernization. Some, however, have gone upmarket and turning into spas (supa), which in Japan do not mean Balinese huts offering Ayurvedic massage while getting sprinkled with orchids, but public baths for stressed-out salarymen, often with a capsule hotel (see Accommodation) bolted on the side. As you might expect, these come in varying degrees of legitimacy — in particular, beware any place advertising "esthe", "health", or "soap" — but most are surprisingly decent.
Japanese are understanding of the funny ways of foreigners, but there's one rule where no exceptions are made: you have to wash yourself and rinse off all suds before entering the bath. The water in the tub will be reused by the next person, and the Japanese consider it disgusting to soak in someone else's dirt! Basically, wash up as well as you hope the guy next to you has done.
Be it a fancy onsen or a barebones sento, the choreography of an entire visit goes roughly as follows:
Shared bathing areas are usually sex-segregated, so look for the characters "man" and "woman" to pick the right entrance. Men's baths also typically have blue curtains, while women's are red. Enter the changing room, leaving slippers at the doorway. Pick an empty basket and undress, placing all your garments in the basket. If there are lockers, place your valuables in them and take the key.
Take your teeny-weeny towel, often provided or sold for a token fee, and enter the bath room. Note that the typical Japanese bath towel is sized like a Western hand towel, only thinner, and are meant primarily for washing. It can also be used to dry yourself, but you will need to repeatedly wring out the water. If you would prefer a larger towel, ask at the front for a bath towel.
After removing your clothes and entering the bathing area, take a little stool, sit down, and clean yourself really, really well. Shampoo your hair, soap your entire body, repeat. Rinse all suds off once clean.
Only then can you enter the bath tub. Do so slowly, as the water can often be very hot indeed; if it's unbearable, try another tub. If you do manage to get in, note that it's considered mildly bad form to let your towel touch the water, so you may wish to fold it atop your head. When sufficiently cooked, wash yourself once again and repeat the process in reverse.
After your bath is finished, you can nearly always find a relaxation lounge (kyūkeishitsu), inevitably equipped with a beer vending machine, nearby. Feel free to sprawl out in your yukata, sip beer, talk with friends, take a nap
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