Sento

The sento. The Japanese public bath. In a nutshell, this is a communal bath house, open only in the evenings, where people go to soak in a choice of baths. The procedure is this: you enter a building that looks a bit like your high school locker room on the inside, take off your shoes and then pass through drapes with the kanji for "man" or "woman". Once inside, you are in the true locker room where you drop your clothes and put them away. At the other end is a large bathing area. This is where you sit on a very low plastic stool and thoroughly soap up and rinse. You wash yourself before you enter the baths. Once you are sure you have rinsed all of the soap off, you are free to join the others in one of the tubs. There will be several to choose from. One might be icy cold, another might be boiling hot and yet another might be lukewarm tea. There might be an electric bath. In some sento, there is a sauna room. More on that later.

Most foreigners are uncomfortable with the idea of the public bath. On the one hand, if you are staying at a traditional japanese inn, you can't avoid it: there aren't individual showers and you can't bathe in the morning like we usually do. You have to use the communal bath area. Sentos are the idea that you must go down the street to a business catering to bathers and strip, wash (before the bath, not IN the bath) and then soak in the tub with a bunch of strangers. And because you are foreigner, they all want to look at your penis. Its true.

It took me about a year before I was ready to take the plunge, as it were. I was living in a ryokan-turned-gaijin house and most of my housemates went to a sento across the street at least twice a week. They always came back like they just had the full spa treatment. But I am a bit of an uptight guy. The kind of guy who makes sure the bathroom door is locked when he takes a shower. But I came across an article introducing the virtues of the sento. So I decided to give it a try. I was careful to watch others before trying it myself. I even took a quick shower before going on my expedition to be on the safe side. Three hours later, I was a changed man.

You have to understand, once you go sento, you never go back. You go native. The sento is the greatest idea ever and why it hasn't caught on in the States, I'll never understand. Okay, yeah, we have public baths...those kinds of baths...and we have hot springs, but its not the same. Its hard to explain, you just have to do it yourself to get the picture.

Now, when I travel in Japan, its no accident that the first thing I ask about are the sento. I've become kind of a sento snob. But I am not alone, its a treat, and sometimes my only excuse for getting out of bed and putting in a long day at work. And I have a routine. I clop down to the local sento in my flip flops, pay the ridiculously cheap admission fee, get naked and spend at least fifteen minutes lathering, shampooing and shaving. And then rinsing. Then I get into the warm bath. That's key. Its preparation for the "you won't have children after this" volcanic bath next. When my skin has started to blister and I have trouble seeing because my corneas have shriveled, I get out and steam in the tiny wood sauna room. When I am almost recovered but now hallucinating, I get out and step into the icy cold tub, whose waters I think might have been siphoned from Siberia.

Then I rinse in the shower and start the cycle over again. And I do this about three or four times. When I return home, I weigh about fifty pounds, I'm four inches shorter and my skin glows like a fourteen year old girl's. Then I plop down on my tatami floor, flick on the fan and drink a very cold beer. The end of a day couldn't be better.