Japanese Onsen from a Gaijin's Perspective

OK, I've only ever been in an onsen, or hot springs, once, and that was with my host family in a hotel (I think). The whole vacation wasn't really explained to me, at all. I ended up having to go out and buy pj's and t-shirts and underwear... awkward.

But on to the real problem.

Japanese onsens are supposed to be relaxing and inviting. I was not relaxed at all because I didn't know what was going on and I wasn't really invited, more like dragged along. Luckily, this one was separated into males and females, but it still didn't avoid the awkwardness of the situation.

There were many different rooms to this onsen. One room looked like a small pool with doors leading outside to a small waterfall enclosure with a bath attached. Another room was for a couple scented baths. One was green tea and the other was lavender, if I remember right.

Then there was the bathroom area. There were sprayers with stools under them with some shampoo and soap for you to use.

Finally there was the entrance area. The place where people change and exit and enter. The only door being the one to the rest of the building.

So as a foreigner, I went with my host mom to this place and we were both given two towels.  One regular sized bath towel and another, smaller, hand towel/wash cloth.  I figured we would cover up with the larger one and use the smaller one for a wash cloth.  Wrong!  After being reprimanded by my host mom, she took the larger towel from me and gave me the smaller one.  Being a tall girl, it barely covered my chest to private area leaving for all the world to see the rest of my front and, ahem, behind.  Lovely.

We visited the various different rooms and after each one we washed off so as not to mix the waters, so to speak.  Luckily there weren't many people in there so it wasn't too awkward all the time.

All in all I survived, but I think that next time I will make sure that I go with people that can speak my language, or at least know more of Japanese to ask questions.  Hopefully then it will be less awkward.