MOMENTS - The Japanese bath...

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The Japanese bath...

MY MOTHER-IN-LAW joined us and we wanted to show her a little of the traditional Japan.

We go to an onsen, with its thermal springs and associated Japanese-style bath. We tell her about the bath being large and very hot, and how one soaps and rinses off before getting into the bath itself.

"We go in together...?" she asks.

We tell her how traditionally the baths were for men and women together but that since Japan opened itself to foreign influence most are now divided into men and women's sections. We show her the slippers and the yukata (a printed cotton robe) she would wear afterwards. Then we give her the towel that the Japanese use for modesty, for washing themselves and, squeezed out, for drying themselves at the end. It's like a small tea-towel for drying dishes.

"Would you mind if I pass...?" she says.

 

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