Monday 13 February 2012

Public Bath


Public bath near IM Guest House

When I walked to Tsuruhashi station the other day, I notice this public bath. It's only about 5mins walk, public bath is famous in Japan. It's a custom in Japan to spend some relaxing time at the public bath (sento 銭湯) after a day at work.

Have you been to public bath before? If you haven't, you should give it a try, you need to have a lot of guts to get in there for the first time though ☺, but it's surely an interesting experience that you shouldn't miss while visiting Japan!






To help you prepare for your visit to the public bath, here are some tips for you so that you know what to expect and what to do when you get there.
  1. Take off all your clothes in the changing room and place them into the coin lockers.
  2. Japanese hot springs are enjoyed naked. Swimming suits are not allowed in most places. However, it is the custom to bring a small towel into the bathing area, with which you can enhance your privacy while outside of the water. Once you enter the bath, keep the towel out of the water.
  3. Rinse/wash your body in the bathing area before entering the bath.
  4. Enter the bath and soak for a while. Note that the bath water can be very hot (typical temperatures are 40 to 44 degrees). If it feels too hot, try to enter very slowly and move as little as possible.
  5. After you finished soaking, do not rinse your body, for the hot spring water's minerals to have full effect on your body.
  6. Most sento reject the customers who have got tatoo. If you have tatoo on your body, you have to hide them with like a node-colour tape.
There are actually four public bath around IM Guest House!!! So make sure you save some time to check them out, they are really worth it!

The locals here are very warm and friendly, you can actually get the traditional feeling of Shitamachi (literary means 'low city' but it's basically means traditional Osaka town), so you can really engaged in the Japanese Culture.

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