Written on January 2, 2011 by Wouter The new year brings all sorts of celebration to the average Japanese family. It starts with eating osechi, the traditional food consumed at midnight to welcome the new year. Then there are things like watching the first sunrise, going to the shrine to pray for luck on the new year (hatsumode), big sales at pretty much every shop in the country and much much more. For the bath lovers there is also a first: the first bath of the year. There is even a word for it: hatsuburo. Hatsu means first and buro stands bath. Some people settle for a home-heated bath, but many will flock to…

Written on January 11, 2011 by Mischa I have been living in Japan for more than three years and usually we spend Christmas and New Year’s in Europe. This time we stayed in Japan for the first time. What better to do than spend Christmas in an onsen resort: we went to Sujiyu Spa. Sujiyu Spa is a small resort town in Oita prefecture, near the border with Kumamoto. The town is part of Kokonoe-machi, which claims to be the only ski resort on the southern island of Kyushu. We went to six different onsen during our trip:

Written on December 17, 2010 by Mischa Keirin is the Japanese word for track cycling. The Keirin track in Beppu happens to have its own onsen. Today I took a bath there. You can read more about my experience on onsenmeijin.com. I also posted a few photos there.

Written on December 24, 2010 by Mischa Tenkai No Yu is a really nice onsen in the hills of west Oita. We went on a Friday night around 9:15 and it was very busy. All the kazokuburo were occupied all the time we were there. People had to wait to get in. We used the public bath, which was also rather crowded. For pictures and more about Tenkai No Yu go to onsenmeijin.com. This entry was posted in Beppu and tagged bath, experience, friday night, night, oita city, onsen. Bookmark the permalink.

Written on November 12, 2010 by Wouter Two sento-related posts caught my attention this week: JapanStyle ran an article about Kodakarayu, the public bath house in the Edo-Tokyo Open Air Architectural Museum. It explains that public bath houses used to look like temples because “baths were more like religious ritual, and bath houses were originally placed in temples for monks to clean their bodies“. Tynan shared his experience at a public bath house in the northern town of Asamushi. “We walked around in circles trying to find a bath. We could see stream of hot water running naturally through the town, so we followed it until it ran under a…

Tennen Onsen Yuan is located in the town of Miki, in rural Hyogo. With a small mountain in it’s back yard and only a small road leading up through a sleepy suburb you are easily fooled into thinking you’ve missed a turn and got lost. But the narrow road soon gives way to a wide parking area. Posted in Experience reports Tagged colored curtains, sake barrels, water, Yuan Information about Spaworld’s current ¥1,000 campaign. Posted in Campaign Tagged Campaign, osaka city, osaka prefecture, price It has been a fairly quiet week on the sento & onsen blogging front, but we managed to find a few interesting articles about public bathing.…

Written on December 14, 2010 by Japan Style This is a syndicated post, which originally appeared at JAPAN Style. View original post. As you may know, Japan has a culture of public bathing. It is sometimes very hard for foreigner to accept this concept, but for Japanese people, it is mostly fun and comfortable. Today, let me post an article about Japanese public baths, called “sento”. You may sometimes confuse sento with onsen. Sento is the bath house itself. Onsen refers to natural hot spring water, or a place where natural water for bathing can be found. Source: Flickr A traditional but common looking sento with a sign reading “onsen”. Therefore, this is a public bath house (sento) with natural hot…

Written on December 5, 2010 by Carey Hall Waldrop This is a syndicated post, which originally appeared at Aisle 3C & a cup of tea, please. View original post. Let me just say that I am MODEST, to say the least!  I never go out of the house thinking that something in my wardrobe is “out of sorts” or missing or showing anything that would scare the public or warrant children screams.  I always hated gym class in middle school, having to change in front of other girls in the locker room.  And God forbid I would ever have to go to a public shower in Church youth group!  (on frequent mission…

Written on November 23, 2010 by Wouter With the onset of the colder weather the number of blog posts about onsen visits also rises. This week we have a review of Kinosaki Onsen and Dogo Onsen, a bathing experience in a ryokan, a great tip on how to recreate the goodness of an onsen in the comfort of your own home and a look at some of the best onsen in Tokyo. Anja Taferner took us on a virtual to Kinosaki Onsen, one of those typically Japanese onsen resort towns in north-western Kansai, where she joined the “plenty of people wearing yukatas (cotton kimonos) and wooden sandals (a very specific…