I love Japanese public baths. It doesn’t matter if it’s onsen (a bath house where all the water is pumped up from volcanic activity in the earth) or sento (regular boiled water with the occasional minerals added), after a stressful day of meetings, writing, and hard-core Japanese studying, nothing makes me feel better than soaking in a public bath with a bunch of old grannies. Recently I got the opportunity to record an awesome “How to do Japanese Onsen” video at a fancy onsen in Tokyo (I still can’t believe they actually let me bring my camera in after hours to record!) … and sometime between soaking in the water, editing the video, and replying to comments in YouTube I realized “Wow, onsen is probably one of my favorite things in Japan (you know, aside from the husband).
