Male bonding

Felix and I had our first onsen (hot spring) bath last night.

Despite living less than five minutes’ walk from the finest genuine hot spring facility in the region, the veritable Mihara Onsen, I am ashamed to report that it has taken us nearly three months to register our first visit. Felix in particular has been very keen, never having been to an onsen in his life, although I discovered later that this was as much to do with the table tennis table upstairs as anything else.

So down the road we trooped, stripped off with all the other blokes, washed and scrubbed ourselves to a shiny gloss in the individual shower cubicles, then tried out the various baths on offer. Because there isn’t just one bath for you to relax in; there are about seven, and that’s only on one side. The other side of the facility (the men’s and women’s sides are swapped around every day) apparently has eleven. You’ve got the main bath with murky brown water at 43° — the genuine onsen water that’s piped up from 2,000 metres below the surface or whatever; then another murky brown bath at a slightly more reasonable 41° C; a plain hot water bath; an electric massage bath that passes a live current through your body (a bit spooky); a series of different water jet massage baths that pummel different parts of your poor hapless naked body; a foot massage bath where you sit on a chair and it has a go at your feet; massage showers that come at you from all sides; and even some pod-like things that you sit inside with only your head poking out.

And all the while you get glorious views of the Seto Inland sea and neighbouring islands out the massive side windows. Or you would if you didn’t go down at night when it’s pitch black, as we did.

But with all those big windows, couldn’t people see you all milling around inside? Well no, not unless they were on a passing ferry or ship with a powerful set of binoculars. (Come to think of it, maybe ships’ captains do indeed swivel the binoculars around for a bit of a perve as they steam into port. Although you’d hope that they’d be concentrating on more important things, like avoiding large obstacles.)

There is actually a window right next to the ledge facing the road down the hill, the one we drive down every day, where you can sit and display your bottom to the world if you so wish. On my very first day in Sunami, as I was coming down the hill with Kobayashi-san the real estate agent, we saw an old guy striking this very pose. Sadly, despite our best efforts, Felix and I have been unable to spot any Public Bottom Displays. So on our next visit we’ll have go during the day so we can do our very own Father and Son Bottom Display. After all, it’s a male bonding thing.

And Mihara Onsen certainly beats our tiny bath here at home: