The Public Baths

are not like those in ancient Rome, but that's what I kept thinking when I visited them with my host mother last night. I kept expecting there to be carved stone reliefs and tiled mosaics depicting sexual acts above the clothes cubbies. There were, of course, none.

The baths weren't very crowded, likely due to the downpour of rain. Upon entering, you place your shoes in a cubby on either the male or female side of the wall. The doors are marked with the characters for "male" and "female", so as long as you have a very basic kanji knowledge, you're fine. =) And after you walk in the door, you hand your 1oo yen to the woman at the desk, and I'm sure she'd let you know if you were being an ignorant foreigner and direct you to the right side.

The first room is a changing room with what looked like tatami flooring. I was a little surprise by this, since I'd heard you're not supposed to get tatami too wet, but I guess it's okay. There were benches and numerous cubbies with plastic baskets to store your clothes, purse, etc. If you wanted, you could pay to use a locked cubby, but I didn't see anyone bothering with them. Once you're sufficiently naked, you can take your various soaps, wash cloth, and requisite plastic tub into the bath room. (Between the changing room and the bath room there is another narrow room with sinks--I'm not sure what goes on here, as we didn't use it.)

Upon entering the bath, you sit yourself on a plastic stool facing the wall and use the various faucets to wash, lather, rinse, etc., yourself. There are three faucets--one hot water, one cold water, and one hot water shower. This is where your plastic tub becomes a necessity: although you could wash yourself entirely under the shower, the usual way to clean yourself is by filling your tub with water and dousing yourself with it. You can use the tub to wet or rinse out your wash cloth (these are much longer than American wash cloths, and are therefore much easier to use in scrubbing your back), or to splash water on your face, etc. I found the shower very useful in rinsing my hair, though--thus far I've found it rather difficult to get all the suds out with bucketfuls of water.

Once you're sufficiently clean--no suds!--you can enter the ofuro proper. This is essentially a very large American-style hot tub, but without all that noxious chlorine. If you're used to those, the temperature is perfect--nice and steamy, just enough to make your toes tingle. You can soak there as long as you like, though we didn't stay more than five minutes.

Following your happy soak, you shower once again in one of the stalls against the wall. I'm not entirely sure why, but it was nice and warm, so I wasn't about to complain. Then we returned to the changing room, where we dried ourselves, redressed, and packed up our things.

All in all, a very relaxing experience, if you can get past the whole "I'm a foreigner standing naked in a room of other naked women" thing. I found that taking off my glasses made the process much easier.


Excelsior!

After a long deliberation, a post!

Why, you ask, do I bother keeping this blog if I insist on not posting messages to it? Funny you should ask! I haven't the slightest idea!

Since my last post, I have spent over a month in Japan traversing the border between Osaka and Kyoto prefectures. My homestay family lives in Yawatashi, three-to-five stations away from the Kansai Gaidai campus (depending on how far and which way you want to walk). My commute consists of 12-20 minutes of walking to the train station, about 15-20 minutes waiting for/on the train, and another 12-20 minute walk to campus/home. Generally, I assume it's going to take an hour and plan my departure accordingly. I thought I'd hate walking so long every day, but I'm already getting used to it. We'll see how long I hold that opinion once the temperature actually drops.

My first few weeks in Japan were definitely filled with the last dregs of summer. After the comparatively cool late-August weather in Minnesota, the hot and humid coastal climate of Kansai was quite a shock, and I determined on the spot that I would not plan to live in Japan for any extended period of time--not in this climate, anyway. As soon as we hit the autumnal equinox two weeks ago, the temperature took a happy drop to a slightly warm, but comfortable fall temperature. The leaves have been changing colors on the sly; I've been seeing more and more fallen leaves, but barely any trees have tinges of color.

I've visited various places and attempted various things--though I have not yet been to karaoke or drank sake--but none have been so ridiculously exciting as to warrant a post here. Perhaps when I'm feeling more ambitious, I'll transfer more notes from my notebook to this blog. For now, let me leave you with a list of various Japan observations.

• Don't expect to do much baking while in Japan. Very few people have ovens, and the traditional American baking supplies are difficult to find. When you do find them, they are often sold in small packets, which makes sense if you only intend to bake one thing, but which may make avid bakers rather frustrated.
• None of the Japanese people I've spoken to so far have ever heard of putting peanut butter and jam together in the same sandwich. I have seen peanut butter sandwiches and jam-and-margarine sandwiches sold in convenience stores, but apparently peanut butter AND jelly is somewhat ridiculous. You CAN find peanut butter, though, if you look. I bought a small jar of Skippy Extra Crunchy, which looks ridiculously American save for a small bit of Japanese on the side of the label. The Ingredients are also listed in English.
• Japanese light switches do not switch up and down, like American switches, but side-to-side. In my homestay, they also have little lights in them so as to aid in finding them in the dark, as well as to indicated whether or not that particular switch is turned "on" or not. Very convenient.
• When there are sidewalks (I miss lots of sidewalks!) there are often raised lines and bumps to guide the blind down the sidewalk safely. Crosswalks also often make noise to indicate when it is safe to cross. They get a bit annoying if you've got your windows open at night, but it seems like a very considerate thing to do.
• Bicycles are all over the place and can be almost as dangerous as cars. All the same, it seems rather dangerous to be a bicyclist due to all the pedestrian and vehicular traffic. . . . Actually, commuting in general is a little treacherous.
• I am ridiculously glad I can't drive here.
• It is nearly impossible to find wheat bread. White bread abounds, but as yet I have only seen one sort of wheat-like bread sold. Bread is also sliced very thickly, between two and three times as thick as the usual American slices. This makes peanut butter and jelly sandwiches difficult unless one can either find the rare thin-sliced bread or is rather good at slicing large pieces in half.
• I have yet to find cilantro. This makes me sad, for the tomatoes are delicious and richly deserve to become salsa.
• Everyone and their dog has a cell phone. (Actually, this is not at all true, but it appears so as you glance down the seats in the train. At least a third of the passengers at any given time will have their cell phones out and their thumbs in use. All of these people will also have charms of some sort dangling off of their phones--yes, the sort of charms that people generally mock in the States--whether they are male, female, young, or old.)
• Very few people have dryers to accompany their washing machines. Instead, they hang-dry their clothes--not on a clothes line, but on hangers clipped to racks.
• I found a gecko in my room, and he was adorable.

Ja, matta!