Japan is no exception. Minimalism was practically invented here and as for tradition, well the wood and paper walls, tatami-mat floors and fully kimonoed kaiseki-service still provided at countless Japanese inns is nothing if not old-fashioned. Still aesthetic differences aside, the one thing that sets the Japanese luxury hotel experience apart from its foreign counterparts is the bathroom. Or rather, the bath room.
No, I don’t mean the place where you brush your teeth and shower but rather the lavish, often open-air rooftop or garden bathing areas, with their hot and cold pools and lush landscaping, that are an integral part of a luxury hotel stay in Japan.
Sitting atop a nexus of tectonic rifts, Japan is blessed with more than its fair share of volcanic activity and consequently, hot water gushes out of the ground at tens of thousands of spots all over the islands. Mostly, the springs are small, some don’t even disgorge enough hot water to fill a small pool but others produce rivers of hot water, especially up in the Japanese Alps and the Shiriyaki, or Roasted Buttocks, in northern Gunma Prefecture, is just one of several hot water rivers in Japan.
Bathing at hot springs, which are known as onsen or rotemburo if they are open-air, has been popular for almost as long as there have been Japanese in Japan. These range from simple neighbourhood bathhouses to decadent mountain or seaside resorts, where bathing is combined with massage and body treatments to create a full spa experience.
Some of the most venerable resorts, places like Shuzenji or Dogo can trace their lineage back five hundred, even a thousand or more years.
Whether it is close to a natural hot spring or else has to heat the water by other means, no self-respecting hotel in Japan is without its public bath and often, the bath is the reason people stay at the hotel in the first place.
Friends who had visited onsen resorts before insisted that a few days in the waters helped purge the body of impurities, improved the skin and would relax even the most tightly wound.
“I slept like a baby for days after,” a significantly refreshed investment banker friend confided in me after his last trip to Japan, “Those baths were like soaking in liquid Halcion.”
So it was that I ended up in Noboribetsu, a legendary onsen resort in southern Hokkaido, a good 750 kilometres north of Tokyo. The granite bath at the Kashoutei Hanaya, a modern ryokan, was all steam and silence. Outside the floor to ceiling windows, beyond the meticulously groomed Japanese garden and the bamboo lattice fence, the pines, larches and the already yellowing Japanese Maple trees, precocious harbingers of the approaching Autumn, rustled in the breeze. Between their trunks, the tumbling waters of a small river rushed by on its way down to the sea.
Inside, a distinctly eggy odour permeated the air, testimony to the high sulphur content of the steaming water filling the giant granite bath. At its far end, the surface of the bath roiled quietly where water from the town’s spring was piped into the hotel. Naturally heated at some dark and unfathomable depth, this water had travelled through cracks and crevices in the earth until it emerged at a scalding 80 degrees Celsius at a spring in the middle of the town, hot enough to poach an egg.
Piped into this tub, 500 metres or so south of this source, the water had been allowed to ‘cool’ to a more temperate of 69.7 degrees Celsius. Hot, for sure, but hopefully not hot enough to cook anything I might lower into it.
Having showered and scrubbed at the taps on one side of the room, I clutched my handkerchief sized fig-leaf/towel to my waist for modesty’s sake – public bathing in Japan is done in the nude but it is not socially acceptable to walk around the bath naked – and walked over to the tub.
There was one other person in the bath, an elderly Japanese man who was running rivers of sweat, which he kept wiping away with his towel. I sat on the edge of the tub. Three steps lead down into the water. Cautiously with more than a trace of trepidation, that I lowered my right foot into the steaming water.
It tingled but did not hurt. Swinging my left leg into the tub, I lowered both legs slowly up to my knees. The feeling of warmth was soothing. I noticed that I had started to sweat. As the water rose past my knees and up my thighs, the burning began. My legs were on fire.
With a gasp, I pushed on and lowered myself onto the first step. The water was now around my waist. I might as well have just lowered myself into the steaming lakes of Hell. Fire danced around my waistline and darted up my spine, enveloping my body in pins and cushions. Tempted to give up, I instead followed the lead of my fellow bather. Zen-like, I folded my towel and placed it on my head.
I looked out of the window at the river and attempted to find solace in the rushing river. The ruse was a failure. Five minutes later, I didn’t feel a single degree cooler. The fire had subsided – probably, I thought darkly to myself, because I had already cooked my lower half. My breathing was harder, my heart was pounding and there was a dull throbbing in my temples. No doubt the result of the desperate attempt by my circulatory system to cool my body.
Now sweating profusely – which of course is the whole point of immersing your body in hot water in the first place – I decided to stay on the first step, half in and half out of the water, at least until the throbbing stopped.
A few minutes later, I felt better and lowered myself gingerly onto the second step. As the water rose up to just below chest height, I felt myself flush and sweat ran down my forehead into my eyes. Reddish-pink and wet, I imagine at that moment that I looked rather like a lobster. I prodded myself, just to see if I was done.
I managed a minute, then hoisted myself rather rapidly back up to the first step. I’m sure that was a smile that crept across my fellow bather’s face. A few minutes later, I tried again. Again, I failed. It took three more tries, with rests in between, to finally feel comfortable on the second step.
Realising now that it would probably take me the rest of the day to get from here to where my friend in torment sat sweating profusely on the other side of the bath, I abandoned caution for valour and by-passing the third step. I sank up to my ears…and then shot out of the water yelping, feeling like a parboiled prawn.
This time, my bathing companion didn’t even try to disguise his delight. With a broad grin on his face, he waved me back towards the showers.
“Get under the cold water for a while and then try again,” he said. “It’s really hot but don’t worry, you can do it.”
I stood under the cold shower, reminding myself of the health benefits of the bath and once thoroughly chilled, I made my way back to the steps. Sure enough, the water no longer burned and a few seconds later, I had waded across the bath and was sat, up to my ears in scalding water, next to my new friend.
The water now felt more like a warm glove. The heat penetrated my skin and worked its way into my core. As the sweat dripped off my forehead, I felt my muscles relax and turn slowly to jelly. My heart was beating a little faster than normal and the heat rising off the water was making my eyes water a little, but all in all, it was heavenly. Looking out of the window at the surrounding countryside, I felt knots in my shoulders that I’ve had so long I’m sure I was born with them, slowly relax and then loosen. My head lolled backwards and my eyelids began to close. I would have let out a long groan of pleasure but I wasn’t alone. We baked in silence for a while.
“When I saw how quickly you got out, I didn’t think you’d get back in again,” the old man said, turning towards me, his head bobbing with the effort of holding back his laughter. “See, it’s not so bad now, is it?”
I would have agreed but just as I turned to reply, the insignificant effort sent sharp waves of heat radiating across my body. The fire returned, only this time it enveloped my whole body. If I had been a kettle, I would have whistled. I didn’t hear the old man’s laughter until I stepped out of the shower.
Three Of The Best
Borou Noguchi
An achingly contemporary, minimalist paradise in thickly wooded hills above Noboribetsu. Sumptuous rooms, all with mountain views, each come with their own private granite baths.
220-1 Noboribetsu Onsenmachi, Hokkaido
Tel: +81-120-391839
HYPERLINK "http://www.bourou.com" www.bourou.com
Shiroganeya
An exquisite ryokan built in 1624 in Yamashiro Onsen, the Shiroganeya is the perfect place to experience a taste of traditional Japan in sleek modern surroundings. Full kaiseki service, beautifully decorated rooms, most with garden views and aromatic cypress wood baths.
18-47 Yamashiro Onsen, Kaga, Ishikawa
Tel: +81-761-77-0025
HYPERLINK "http://www.shiroganeya.co.jp/main-en.html" www.shiroganeya.co.jp/main-en.html
Ginyu
Japanese or Western-style rooms, lavishly decorated in a contemporary style and many with their own private bath, the onsen and rooms at the Ginyu come with incredible views over the forest and mountains of this resort town just an hour west of Tokyo.
100-1 Miyano-shita, Hakone-cho
+81-460-82-3355
HYPERLINK "http://www.hakoneginyu.co.jp/english" www.hakoneginyu.co.jp/english
