A sentou experience

Sometimes it amazes me how easily I become infatuated with things. Usually, obsessions range from fat, furry animals to TV shows and whichever food I've chosen to be my favorite for the next few months. As humans are habit forming, we tend to enjoy what we know. And if what we know pleases us to no end, then why should there be an end at all?

My most recent infatuation has been in the vein of Japanese relaxation style. Sentous or public baths aren't the eerie American-style public baths you would never visit, but only hear stories about the married men who do, leading some sort of double life, frolicking to abandoned parks to partake in clandestine gay sex. Public baths in Japan are of a completely different nature, and one that represents a pinnacle of Japanese modern and ancient culture.


Each sentou features a variety of different whirlpool baths, some even include underwater electric currents that massage your body from the inside. It feels as if there is some source trying to suck out your organs, but if you just let go, it's relaxing.

There are outdoor pools, sauna and steam rooms as well as gambanyoku, a hot rock bed in which you lay on to soothe back aches. Most sentou come equipped with beer vending machines, which complete the ultimate relaxation in a 40C pool. Showers are aplenty as well as wrinkly naked women with untrimmed bush. It's rather amazing how long their hair can grow--like the whiskers of an old sensei.

In either case, sentous have enlivened my exercise regime as the relaxing finish to longer and longer runs. The sentou near Marine Pia, Taihenoyu, also boasts an excellent view of the Akashi Kaikyo Bridge and the Bay.