Japanese Hot Spring Culture and Bathing Etiquette

Visiting Japan, soaking in hot springs is indispensable, "Not soaking in hot springs is like never having been to Japan". Here are a few distinctive hot springs to recommend: 1. Tokyo Toshimaen 'Niwa no Yu'. The spring water gushes from 1,455 meters underground, with an indoor classic German spa and an outdoor 1,200 tsubo Japanese garden, where flowers and plants change with the seasons, offering a delightful flower-viewing and hot spring experience. 2. Tokyo TOKYO DOME Korakuen's SPALAQUE. A Balinese-style hot spring full of Southeast Asian romantic atmosphere, it is a full-featured hot spring SPA leisure center created using natural hot springs drawn from 1,700 meters underground in Tokyo, including soaking, dining, and resting facilities. 3. Tokyo Odaiba 'Oedo Onsen Monogatari'. A theme hot spring park that recreates the scene of a huge bathhouse from the Edo period, with an Edo-era street inside the venue, featuring shops, izakayas, beauty skin houses, etc., reflecting the life scene of Tokyo more than 130 years ago. You can rent a kimono with ukiyo-e prints according to your preference and stroll down this street, which is quite picturesque. The hot spring area has many outdoor baths surrounded by rocks and a garden walking foot bath area, with more than 20 types of rich pure Japanese hot springs. 4. Hakone Kowakien. Japan's most popular large-scale comprehensive hot spring, famous for its red wine hot spring pool and green tea hot spring pool, it is a Japanese-style hot spring paradise that combines with the comfortable and leisurely natural culture of Hakone, and is also a hot spring resort in Japan. 5. The hot spring at the top hot spring inn 'Hakone HATSUHANA'. 6. Kobe 'Arima Onsen'. Kobe's oldest hot spring town with a long history, known as 'Kobe's hinterland', is one of Japan's three famous springs. Walking in the hot spring town, with street vendors, traditional houses, delicious snacks, etc., makes one feel relaxed and comfortable. Arima Onsen's spring water contains about twice the concentration of iron salt springs as seawater, and the rust-red 'Gold Spring' and the colorless transparent carbonated 'Silver Spring' are particularly famous. 7. Osaka 'SPA WORLD Onsen World'. One of the world's largest hot spring leisure bathhouses, open 24 hours, offering 16 types of hot springs from 11 countries. Understanding the local hot spring culture when visiting hot springs in Japan helps to better experience it: Frequent crustal movements have created a patchwork of hot springs in Japan, from small islands at sea to hidden spots in the mountains, everywhere there are beautifying and fitness-enhancing soaking or various scenic hot springs. Japan's 'Hot Spring Law' gives a clear explanation of hot springs: spring water that gushes from underground at a temperature of 25°C or above, or spring water that contains a certain amount of specified mineral components in 1 kilogram of water (even if the temperature is not up to 25°C) is considered a hot spring. Hot springs are further divided into low-temperature springs below 34°C, medium-temperature springs between 34°C and 42°C, and high-temperature springs above 42°C. In addition, hot springs are divided into 11 types based on acidity and alkalinity, osmotic pressure, etc. During the Nara period in Japan, hot springs were mainly used for leisure, treatment, and various religious activities by nobles and monks, and were not open to the general public; in the modern Edo period, due to the underdevelopment of medicine, the medical effects of hot springs were highly valued, which led to a great extent of development, and the general public also began to enjoy hot springs. Japanese hot springs are mainly naked soaking, relaxing the body, freeing the mind, and achieving a state of returning to the original and true through candid interaction. Hot springs have 'three nourishments': 'recuperation' to recover from fatigue, 'maintenance' to maintain health and prevent diseases, and 'therapy' to treat diseases. There are some etiquettes to pay attention to when soaking in hot springs. 1. 'Clean body before entering the pool': Before entering the hot spring pool, even if you have already washed very clean elsewhere, you must first wash your body clean in public at the bathing area outside the pool, to prove that you are entering the pool with a clean body, otherwise, as soon as you enter the pool, people in the pool will jump out; 2. 'Keep a low voice': Natural hot springs are located in quiet valleys and steep mountains. In the quiet atmosphere, with the mountains, water, grass, trees, the babbling of streams, the melodious bird songs, and the cleansing of body and mind, loud laughter will destroy the originally tranquil atmosphere and affect the mood of others; 3. 'Soak, not wash': Japanese hot springs are for 'soaking' not 'washing'; 4. 'Dress correctly': Hot spring inns provide yukatas, and when wearing them, be sure to have the left lapel on top, because in Japan, only the dead have the right lapel on top. Hot spring baths are private places, and photography is prohibited, only specially permitted professional photography teams have the opportunity to be allowed. I encountered such a three-person photography team in the outdoor pool of Oedo Onsen Monogatari, with one person for lighting, one for assistance, and one for the main shot. Therefore, the 'interior photos' in this note were taken at 'Hakone HATSUHANA' when I got up early to soak in the springs, with no one around, so I 'sneakily' took some openly.