by Alexia Brue
In my moment of supreme embarrassment, I tried to focus again on the religious origins of these baths. I remembered a passage from Euro that explained: 'Bathing in Japan is best when communal. Never inhibited by Judeo-Christian embarrassment about the human body or taboos on public nudity, the Japanese have always bathed in groups. Until quite recently, men and women soaked together in public bathhouses as well as hot springs.' Those days were sadly over. 'Judeo-Christian embarrassment' had firmly taken root, but no one had told me. I alone was enjoying the innocence of the Garden of Eden, while the rest of the bathers were decked out in fig leaves.
I recovered my composure after several dunks in hot, clear water. At least my clumsy naked entrance hadn't been caught on film. Philippe and I, now guarded by a mist rising off the hot water, made our way over to the bamboo pipe resting on a rocky ledge. The water, straight from the deep, underground source - I imagined raging geothermal fires presided over by the Shinto fire god - was hotter than the water in the pool, and we took turns arching our heads under the spout. The flow was gentle, and as the water massaged my head I looked toward the sky. Brilliant red and orange leaves flapped in the wind, barely tethered to the trees, while some leaves danced in the air and fell toward the pool. Other bathers, lying on their backs, floated around the pool, also staring at the sky. Were we tricking nature by not braving the elements, but instead contemplating nature from inside the heat of this red-stoned pool? Luckily nature gave us this pool, making this a religious pleasure, not a hedonistic one. Not that I needed to justify pleasure anymore.
We stayed in the pool for hours. When the heat started to make us dizzy, we'd sit on a rock ledge in the 40-degree-Fahrenheit air, our bodies coughing steam and feeling not the faintest nip in the air. Then we'd play a game to see who could stand the cold the longest and who first took refuge in the pool. Philippe would always get cold first (Vermonters are heartier than Belgians), but he's more competitive, so I lost every time.
Philippe and I had nothing in common, but when he left for New York, I missed him for the first few days. Between Hakone and Takaragawa, I had caught the onsen bug and wanted to focus my search on more remote onsen. But first, I had to see how they bathed in Japan's most compelling and cultured city, Kyoto.
One need only open a guidebook to learn that Kyoto is a city of 1.4 million people. But somehow this fact completely escaped me, and I arrived expecting an intimate jewel box of a city. First I figured the high-gloss, futuristic train station was an exception, the bleak avenues and ugly skyscrapers other aberrations. Finally I realized that the Kyoto of Western imagination is hidden in small pockets around the city. It takes a diligent and persistent traveler to find the intimate sake bars, the raked gardens, and the geisha-inhabited lanes. I cursed Pico Iyer, one of my favorite writers, for misleading me in The Lady and the Monk, his book about Kyoto that conveniently skims over any urban blight and concentrates on footbridges, changing leaves, and his growing obsession with a Japanese housewife.
Kyoto's most interesting accommodations include a dozen or so Buddhist monasteries that offer room and board. The sentos were, as promised, everywhere. Moreover, they were still vital without needing to curry contemporary favor with slapdash exercise and karaoke wings. I quickly fell into a pattern of nightly visits to the Santo-Yu Sento (translation: Good Health and Hot Water Bath). Not only was it three 90-degree turns away from my monastery, it had an intriguing denkifuro that I liked to flirt with.
The denkifuro is a uniquely Japanese invention: a bath with electric current running through it. What sicko thought of this? I wondered. The Japanese believe that the light electric current stimulates the circulation. Game for any bath, no matter how freakish, I dipped my leg in and my body seized in horror. It felt like hundreds of crickets were trying to jump out of my calf. A woman sitting in the six-foot-square pool smiled encouragingly at me. I added my second leg and began to lower myself into the bath. The current felt anything but light. A rash of pins and needles stabbed my lower body, and I began to wonder how beneficial to my health submerging my body into electrified water actually was. Add to that a concern that I might never have children if I dipped my body any lower. Embarrassed, I bowed to the other bather, a strangely formal thing to do at a sento, and retreated upstairs to the sento's large sauna with a glassed-in television. Ten women were sitting on pink plastic foam cushions, passively watching the Osaka-Tokyo baseball game.
Overall, the Kyoto sentos were bigger than Tokyo's and more crowded as well. In a city of tiny apartments, the sentos' wide tubs and water largesse — in fact, the Japanese love to watch the expensive hot water splash decadently over the tub's side - made an otherwise cramped life tolerable. Also, many of the sentos had outdoor decks to showcase fabricated rotenburos, so bathers could enjoy the pinch of cold air from the safety of warm water. For a real rotenburo experience, Kyoto had one lovely outdoor onsen on its outskirts, Kurama Onsen. Kurama was simplicity itself. From the confines of a twelve-foot rectangular wooden box, bathers would sit shoulder deep in 101 degrees Fahrenheit and contemplate the opposing hilltop of swaying pines.
The Geishas of Kii-Katsuura
The onsen ideal involves hiking ten kilometers into the wilderness and finding rock-sculpted hot springs next to a riverbed — or better yet, sculpting your own tub out of rocks the way they do along some riverbeds. Realizing that this ideal required more rugged individualism and camping equipment than I could muster on this trip, I compromised by taking a train to a remote fishing village in the Wakayama prefecture. Though many onsen have colorful stories of discovery and awesome perches, this description held special allure:
The special bath, called Bokido, is situated in a natural cave . . . Bokido means 'Forget-to-Go-Home-Bath,' named after what a nobleman of the Edo period did, so infatuated was he with this area. The water is sulfate and was once used by wounded warriors of the Taira clan after skirmishes with the Minamoto clan in the 12th century. It's still good for any battle injuries you might have . . .
The dramatic seaside setting and the evocative name and history immediately seduced me. I'd also seen a picture in another book of two Japanese girls relaxing in a 'jungle bath' at Kii-Katsuura. So the bonanza prospect of both a jungle bath and a Forget-to-Go-HomeBath kept me anchored to my seat as the train emptied out in the popular resort town of Shirahama. Yes, I was becoming Japanese in my pursuit of as many different bathing experiences as possible. I settled in, the only passenger in the car, for another three-hour chug to Kii-Katsuura.
The coastline came in and out of view. Crags cropped out of the water, overshadowed by cypresses and birches blazing yellow and orange like bonfires falling into the sea. It was thrilling to see the Pacific Ocean, to be out of the mechanized chaos of Tokyo and Kyoto. On this train to nowhere, I felt as though I were getting closer and closer to satori, the elusive Zen Buddhist enlightenment brought about through zazen. My preferred setting for mediation, of course, was chest deep in hot water.
The J R train had petered out to an exhausted chug as it scaled the mountainous coastline. Finally we stopped at the square of a little town and I recognized Kii-Katsuura, not from any landmark, but more from a feeling. The town was tiny and charmingly provincial, comprising two intersecting thoroughfares with festive banners overhead that seemed left over from a long-forgotten parade. The avenues were lined with shoe shops, women's clothing stores, fishmongers, sushi stalls, and coffee bars. In the West, we hear so much about Japanese tea ceremonies, but it's the coffeehouses that are ubiquitous, and coffee seems to be the preferred vehicle for caffeine. Despite the assurances of the banners, it was eerily empty and quiet in Kii-Katsuura. With my small wheeled suitcase in tow, I was the only person walking down the long wide street toward the ocean.
For a moment, I had an unsettling flashback to the deserted entrance of the Tchaykovsky banya in St Petersburg. I took heart at the sight of three women approaching me on the dusty street. They were my age, maybe younger, and two appeared to be Japanese, w
hile the third was a tall, slender Caucasian girl with a shock of bleached blond hair. She was dressed in a white tank top, her bra straps sticking out, blue Adidas sweat pants, and a pair of rubber flip-flops. She carried a plastic bag filled with hot dog buns. As she passed, she nodded to me in acknowledgment, as Caucasians in remote parts of Japan are wont to do. Perhaps she was an exchange student from Düsseldorf, but she was most certainly not a tourist. Tourists generally don't walk around with hot dog buns.
Before I could even think about finding the Forget-to-GoHome-Bath or a place to stay, I had to find lunch. All I'd eaten the entire six-hour ride from Kyoto were two packets of Pocky, a popular Japanese snack food of pretzel sticks dipped in chocolate. I passed a dimly lit coffeehouse with a large group of women chatting and laughing. My entrance was welcomed with a warm chorus of 'Irashaimase,' and I took a seat at the bar. A moment later, the trio I'd seen on the street walked in and sat at a table behind me. I ordered yakisoba, noodles and cabbage fried up in soy sauce, and an iced coffee, which the Japanese make deliciously strong. The blond girl also ordered an iced coffee and then joined me at the bar.
'Are you a tourist?' she asked shyly.
'Yes, are you?'
'No, I work here.' She pulled a box of cigarettes out of her pocket and offered me one.
'Do you work in one of the hotels?' I asked hopefully.
'No,' she said, examining her fingernails. She looked up at me. Her brown eyes were tough and sweet, and she had a don't-mess-with-me vulnerability that was instantly endearing. Finally she said in a pout, 'I don't like it here. Tokyo I like. But here so boring.'
'Where are you from?'
'Romania.' She took such a deep drag on her cigarette, I thought it would disappear into her mouth. 'My name is Kristy,' she said on the exhale.
Her cheeks were somewhat hollow underneath her high, chiseled cheekbones. Her skin was porcelain white and flawless. She was, I guessed, every Japanese man's fantasy woman.
'And this is Mama,' she said, introducing a preppie sixty-year-old Japanese lady who wore a yellow Izod shirt and a windbreaker outfit. 'She takes care of me and the other girls,' she said, pointing to her two friends. 'They're from the Philippines.'
'So you used to live in Tokyo?' I asked, her line of work slowly dawning on me.
'Oh yes,' she said dreamily, 'I spent six months in Rappongi, and it was so wonderful. So much money, so much fun. Here so boring.'
Rappongi, I remembered from a night out with Philippe and his entourage, was the red-light district of Tokyo, tightly packed with strip bars featuring women of every nationality.
'Here I work at a club called Sweet Spot. Every night I have to be there from seven until three in the morning. And only two days off per month.'
'Is the money good, at least?' I asked.
'No, it's terrible. One hundred dollars on a good night. They lure us here with a contract telling us "so much yen, so much yen," so I come from Tokyo and there's nothing here. Just a few fishermen and whalers.'
'Can't you go back to Tokyo?' I asked.
'No. If I break my contract here, I have to go home to Romania, where I can only earn fifty dollars a month. Japanese men, I don't like Japanese men. They are always trying to grab me when they get drunk.'
'So you don't do lap dances?'
'No lap dances. Just dancing and talking.'
'You speak Japanese?'
'Hai. Nihon-go wa wakarimasu ka?' she said with a proud smile.
'Wakarimasen,' I responded. It was one of my few Japanese expressions, and it meant 'I don't understand.' 'How did you manage to learn Japanese?'
'We have no choice. How else we get tips? Why are you in Japan?'
'Umm, to see the baths, you know the famous onsen of Japan,' I said, slightly embarrassed at the frivolity of my pursuit in comparison with her life of survival.
'I have heard good things from my customers about these baths, but I have never been.' Then Mama, who didn't speak English, said something to Kristy in Japanese, who explained, 'Mama is wondering about where you are going to stay tonight.'
'I have the name of two hotels in this book - Urashima and Nakanoshima. I'll be fine.'
'Are you lonely?' Kristy asked.
'Do you mean traveling alone?'
'Yes, yes, traveling by yourself, lonely. It harder to find a room for one at a ryokan. Mama said she will help you.'
After we'd each had three iced coffees and filled an ashtray, we set off, with Mama in the lead, for the quay. The quay is the real town square of Kii-Katsuura. Small chug boats designed to look like sharks and cartoon characters shuttle guests back and forth from the mainland to the two floating island hotels.
Mama and Kristy negotiated on my behalf at the hotel booking office. It seems 'lonely' travelers get penalized. Ryokan prices generally include a lavish dinner and breakfast and as many baths as you can handle. A price of $90 was agreed upon after an initial insistence of $200.
Kristy repeated, 'So expensive, so expensive. You lonely, so they charge you more.'
'Yes, it's very expensive to be lonely,' I said, thinking more of her customers than myself. 'Kristy, do you want to come to the hotel with me and we can visit the onsen before you have to go to work?'
She looked at her watch. It was nearing 5:00, and she had to shower and be in full makeup by 7:00. 'Maybe tomorrow,' she said, utterly without enthusiasm.
'Can I come see you dance tonight?' I asked. There were only so many baths I could take, and Kristy was sweet and her life a mystery.
'You want to see me dance?' she said, simultaneously aghast and flattered.
'Yes, if you don't mind.'
She didn't say yes or no. She and Mama walked onto the dock with me, and I hopped on a chug boat designed to look like Casper the Friendly Ghost. I thanked them profusely and bowed deeply to Mama. She was beaming. I was another saved street urchin. I took a seat on the boat and looked back to the dock, expecting to see them retreating up the gangplank. But they stood just outside my window, watching the boat. Suddenly Kristy jumped on the boat, rushed over to me, and said, 'You understand yen, right? Don't pay more than ten thousand yen. You understand?' And then she rejoined Mama on the quay.
As the boat zoomed away, I watched Kristy put her arm through Mama's and head back into town to put on eye shadow and a bra-and-panty set, her workplace attire, for a night of dancing for groping fishermen. I wanted to see her again, to show her the onsen, expose her to the pure side of Japan. And I wanted to thank her for helping me find a home for the night.
Casper the Friendly Ghost spat me and ten Japanese couples out onto the dock of the Urashima Hotel, a lush fantasy island of six separate onsen areas, dining rooms, pachinko parlors, souvenir stalls, and karaoke bars. Hiruko, the only English speaker on staff, met me at the first reception desk. His proficiency in English was slight, but we pantomimed dinnertime and onsen locations.
I had shin splints by the time we reached my room. It was a good half-mile walk through endless white corridors crammed with video games and small walled-in cubicles for one-on-one romantic karaoke sessions. My room, on the seventh floor of a tower building facing the Pacific, was really a suite, a trio of six-tatami rooms. In a country where space is measured in two-by-four-foot tatami mats, and where Max spent seven years living in a single six—tatami mat room, I was living large at the Urashima.
The main room had a knee-high lacquered table with two zabuton pillow chairs and an alcove for the traditional calligraphy scroll and flower arrangement. A thermos of green tea and yunohana buns were laid out in customary ryokan fashion. At night, the table and chairs were exchanged for a futon and bedding. Behind a shoji screen was a sitting room overlooking the rocky Pacific coastline. Having explained all the usual features of a ryokan room, with special emphasis on the need to change from 'tatami' slippers into 'bathroom' slippers before using the facilities, Hiruko left me in peace to contemplate the stresses of slipper etiquette.
I replaced my clothes and shoes
with yukata and geta and set off for Bokido, about a quarter mile away, through a cavernous tunnel that rounded the hotel by the ocean. At the end of the tunnel, the walls gave way to gray, exposed rock faces. I was inside a grotto.
It was pure madness inside. Every newly arrived female guest was trying to squeeze in a predinner bath. I showered in front of exposed rock, walked on slate. Not a synthetic material in sight. A series of three tubs moved toward the Pacific, pulling the bather's eyes toward a hole, like the eye of a needle, that opened out on the wide expanse of cresting waves. Curious to investigate, I made my way by wading through different pools toward the pear-shaped hole. I looked over the edge to the waves crashing on the rocks below, dark blue swells cresting into foam. A few hundred feet beyond my safe perch in the cave, other large rocks jutted up from the ocean, looking monolithic and sacred, like the second coming of Stonehenge emerging from the ocean's floor.
Satisfied by my exploration, I returned to the first large pool, with a fountain in the middle bubbling over with yellowish green water. The deep smell of sulfur went straight to my head, a smell I was growing very fond of and that I equated now with health and good skin instead of rotten eggs. The water at the fountain was the purest, and I watched the women eagerly approach the fountain and splash the hot, sulfuric water on their faces. Nature's Clearasil. I got in line. I splashed my face and licked my upper lip. The water tasted like sulfur salts mixed with cayenne pepper. It had a nice kick. I could feel my pores tighten after the jolt of sulfur. This was the good stuff.