aj

Can someone give me an idea of what to do in the bath at the Roykan. I know you wash off first outside the bath then soak? Sorry about the ignorance, I have some read some information but want to know more in case there is no English spoken. I don't want to do the wrong thing? How does one wash their hair??? I am used to a shower at home but am excited to try something new in Japan!

mrwunrfl

They will give you a small hand towel to use or you may have to pay for one (200yen or so). At the entrance, you might see lockers or cubbyholes with shoes in them. If so, remove your shoes and store them there. This might be at the entrance to the onsen building or it may be just outside the dressing room.

Never wear shoes on a tatami mat. Do not drip wet from your body or wring out your towel onto a tatami mat.

Go into the dressing room, take off all your clothes and put them into the basket or locker. Go into the bath area. You will see very low stools in front of faucets. There will be soap there, good mild soapy soap. There likely will be some shampoo but if not just use the soap.

At the faucet, there will be a small, short, bucket. If you don't see one at the faucet then they will be out along the wall somewhere. The faucets often have temperature control and a swith that goes between the faucet and an attached hand-held shower nozzle.

Squat down and sit on the stool facing the faucet.

Usually, you press a big button or something on the faucet and the water gushes out into your waiting bucket. Dowse your entire body with a few buckets full. Then soap up and rinse. Do not spare the soap and especially do not spare the water when rinsing. Be sure to clean every square inch.

Do it the old fashioned way and don't use the shower nozzle (or maybe just use it to make certain that your hair is well rinsed). You won't have an opportunity back home to dump buckets and buckets of very hot water all over. It is very relaxing and feels so good. Use the shower nozzle when you get back home.

You can repeat the soap and rinse, if you want. Rinse out your towel completely and then wring it dry. Go into the bath. Hold the towel above the water, place it on the edge of the bath out of the water, or put it on your head. They say not to put the towel in the water but plenty of guys do this and then wipe their face.

After your soak, you can go back to the stool and clean off again. This is not typical, though, as the thinking is that you want to keep the onsen water on your body so that you get the benefit of the minerals in the water which have some healing/prevention power. Or so the thinking goes. So, you would not want to wash this off. But I do, sometimes.

Then, while in the bath area use your towel to get mostly dry. This will require wringing out your towel several times and going over patch after patch. Do your body and your hair. After you are down drying your body you will now be damp again from perspiration because your body is still hot from the bath. That's the way it kinda works anyway. Between the (probably) stone floor of the bath are and the tatami floor of the dressing room you will probably find a small room. That room would have a couple of floor mats. You finish drying off there while cooling down. When you go into the dressing room you should be dry. You could be a bit moist, but not wet. Certainly not dripping.

You will probably see a counter with combs and, if you are a guy, shaving stuff and aftershave and hair dryers. Use that stuff as you like. Don't forget to get dressed before you leave.

mrwunrfl

It is a common practice that when you come into the bath area, and before you have soaped up and rinsed, that you over to the bath. There you could use a bucket to dowse yourself once or twice and then get into the bath. The idea is that you soak for a minute or two to "loosen up" the grime on your body. This is how I read it was to be done and when I went to an onsen with Otani-san, the owner of Koemon minshuku in Shirakawago, this is what he did, so I did too.

It is perfectly ok to not do this and to go to the faucet straight away.

mrwunrfl

I usually don't do the quick soak before the soap as I described in my last post and wish the Japanese would change the routine.

What I just described was how to use an onsen bath. Your ryokan may or may not have such a bath. A ryokan is an inn. An onsen is a hot springs. Some ryokan have an onsen bath. Some of those are communal. Some of those are open to the public (i.e. not necessarily ryokan guests). Other places may have onsen baths but are not lodging places.

KimJapan

Said everything I would have said...it works just like that in every bath that is public, be it in a sento, ryokan, hotel...

The only thing you could do that would be a serious mistake would be to get soap into the soaking tubs. If that happens, they have to be drained and refilled, which involves closing at least that tub and maybe the whole bathroom, which is very serious. Whatever you do, rinse well before soaking.

mrwunrfl

And don't pull the plug drain the water from a bath ... unless you are the one who filled it (i.e. the bath in your room).

aj

Thanks for all your help. I am not sure we will have access to an onsen but I was under the impression that at the Roykan there would be a "traditional" shared bath area and I did not want to offend anyone but at the same time wanted to be clean...I am looking forward to a new experience. Most of our travel is in Europe and we have not come across any "different" bathing practices except "small" shower stalls!

emd

aj, if anyone of us is in Japan and sees someone clutching a sheet of paper in the onsen bath, reading from what seems to be a step by step guide to onsen etiquette and behavior, we will know it is you and mrw's post here that you have printed out and taken with you! Just get it laminated so it won't get wet. (Or is it bad etiquette to take any reading material into the bath area?? :-&lt

mrw, that is a classic posting. We need to start a separate "sticky" thread of classics like this for solid great general advice needed for anyone going to Japan.

mrwunrfl

aj, as KimJapan mentioned, what I described is applicable to a shared bath at a ryokan, especially the part about not draining the bath.