Tuesday, April 24, 2007
Hotness
On Monday, I went on another field trip with the frame gang. We went with Danielle, my underwater dive photographer friend and honorary frame gang member. (She mats and frames a lot of her work at the shop, a lot of the time.) Danielle is also a fellow ESL teacher. She did some translating and stuff for a student of hers and as thanks got 10 free passes to this stone spa place. She invited us to use them up with her.
I'd heard of the Japanese bath houses before - places where you need to bathe in order bathe. Where you shield your private bits from view with some tiny washcloth thing. Where tattoos are forbidden so as to keep out Japanese mafia. They seem like "real Japan" to me, some secret world that I haven't had the guts yet to enter. I didn't know if this stone spa place was considered a bath house or not, but I hoped so.
We got there, all 6 of us, and entered the small building. We took off our shoes and put them in numbered lockers before approaching the front desk. The lady at the counter smiled and extended hand her hand to take the keys. In return, she handed us metal baskets containing three neatly folded towels and a set of pajamas. Pajamas? What were they for? I thought we were supposed to be naked. Did we wear the pajamas and then remove them? Hmmm...
We all hung around the desk wondering what to do. We did have two Japanese speakers with us, but they had never been to such a place either. They were just as clueless as the rest of us.
Somehow, we managed to find the locker room. I took off all my clothes and put on my pajamas. Sue, Danielle, Rachel and Erica more modestly decided to put bathing suits under their PJs. "At least the bottoms", they agreed. I was kind of proud then of my bravery at deciding I'd go in the buck, like I figured all Japanese did. I figured, what the hell, I had seen naked 80 year olds on a regular basis in my gym locker room in Vermont. If they can prance around naked, so can I! (I must qualify all this by saying that I was under the assumption that the sauna room as NOT co-ed!)
After we changed, we picked up our baskets of towels and wondered, (very loudly and obnoxiously - I felt sorry for the other patrons!) what we were supposed to do next. Fortunately, there was a cartoon picture on the locker room wall with what looked like instructions. I noticed in that the cartoon girl in the picture was fully dressed. Sue translated.
You lay on your front for five minutes, then flip over on your back for ten minutes, then go outside to take a break, then go back in and do it all over again. Okay, easy enough. Purpose: to rid body of nasty toxins and impurities.
Tentatively, we entered the door into the room that we were supposed to do the laying and flipping in, still unsure of the state of undress we were supposed to do it in.
The room was hot. F*ckin' hot. It was small and hot with no furniture or windows, with little concrete dividers set in the floor, separating the "heating booths", if you will. There were two ladies already in the room laying silently on the floor of their stalls. They were fully clothed. I felt relief, I admit, but also disappointment. I had wanted to put my bravery to the test.
Following one another's lead, we all spread our towels on the stall floors and laid, face down, on top of them. Our heads rested on these surprisingly comfortable wicker pillows. I looked at the clock. Five minutes.
I was already sweating before I even got on the floor. I could feel the stickiness of my hair against my scalp. My pajamas clinging to me. It was hot.
I like the heat. I like saunas. But this was hot one some excrutiating level. The tiled floor radiated heat through the towel. It felt like being locked up in an unmoving summertime car. With no air conditioning. (The stones of the "stone spa", were in the floor tiles, I guess. There were no warm stones placed on your back, or anything like that. It was just like a really really hot sauna.)
I flipped over before my five minutes was up. The sweat began to soak through my pjs in unlikely places; like my shins and forearms. I saw that there was some kind of laminated pamphlet in the corner of my stall. I reached for it. Thank Godness, I thought, a distraction.
It was a cartoon, in Japanese of a family, going to a spa. I think. A mom, dad, grandpa and little boy. The family seemed to be telling the boy that they were off to the bath house. The boy exclaimed something with glee. Then he got reprimanded. I guess he was too joyful. I flipped through trying to make my own little English language story for them...but I just...couldn't...concentrate.
I looked up. Five more minutes. I wondered if this was some kind of awful device to cook foreigners.
Okay...we had all had enough at about the same time and got the hell out of there. We were soaked. It was break time. We sat in the cafe-style break room comparing notes about how hot we were. Sue got up and came back with a tiny scoop full of salt and distributed a little to each of us. "We're supposed to eat it" she said. The salt was strong and weird tasting. We sat in the break room for a long time, chatting, watching the rain and reading Japanese magazines.
We went back in for round two.
Ahhhh. It still sucked. But, we endured. Although, none of us felt able enough to do the recommended third round. We just hung out for "break", basking in the toxin-free-ness that we were supposed to have gained from the sweat bath, and decided to call it a day.
Would I go back? Well, sure. The sense of relief you got upon exiting the hot room, made it almost worth it. And who knows...maybe I dropped a pound or two in the process?
I'd heard of the Japanese bath houses before - places where you need to bathe in order bathe. Where you shield your private bits from view with some tiny washcloth thing. Where tattoos are forbidden so as to keep out Japanese mafia. They seem like "real Japan" to me, some secret world that I haven't had the guts yet to enter. I didn't know if this stone spa place was considered a bath house or not, but I hoped so.
We got there, all 6 of us, and entered the small building. We took off our shoes and put them in numbered lockers before approaching the front desk. The lady at the counter smiled and extended hand her hand to take the keys. In return, she handed us metal baskets containing three neatly folded towels and a set of pajamas. Pajamas? What were they for? I thought we were supposed to be naked. Did we wear the pajamas and then remove them? Hmmm...
We all hung around the desk wondering what to do. We did have two Japanese speakers with us, but they had never been to such a place either. They were just as clueless as the rest of us.
Somehow, we managed to find the locker room. I took off all my clothes and put on my pajamas. Sue, Danielle, Rachel and Erica more modestly decided to put bathing suits under their PJs. "At least the bottoms", they agreed. I was kind of proud then of my bravery at deciding I'd go in the buck, like I figured all Japanese did. I figured, what the hell, I had seen naked 80 year olds on a regular basis in my gym locker room in Vermont. If they can prance around naked, so can I! (I must qualify all this by saying that I was under the assumption that the sauna room as NOT co-ed!)
After we changed, we picked up our baskets of towels and wondered, (very loudly and obnoxiously - I felt sorry for the other patrons!) what we were supposed to do next. Fortunately, there was a cartoon picture on the locker room wall with what looked like instructions. I noticed in that the cartoon girl in the picture was fully dressed. Sue translated.
You lay on your front for five minutes, then flip over on your back for ten minutes, then go outside to take a break, then go back in and do it all over again. Okay, easy enough. Purpose: to rid body of nasty toxins and impurities.
Tentatively, we entered the door into the room that we were supposed to do the laying and flipping in, still unsure of the state of undress we were supposed to do it in.
The room was hot. F*ckin' hot. It was small and hot with no furniture or windows, with little concrete dividers set in the floor, separating the "heating booths", if you will. There were two ladies already in the room laying silently on the floor of their stalls. They were fully clothed. I felt relief, I admit, but also disappointment. I had wanted to put my bravery to the test.
Following one another's lead, we all spread our towels on the stall floors and laid, face down, on top of them. Our heads rested on these surprisingly comfortable wicker pillows. I looked at the clock. Five minutes.
I was already sweating before I even got on the floor. I could feel the stickiness of my hair against my scalp. My pajamas clinging to me. It was hot.
I like the heat. I like saunas. But this was hot one some excrutiating level. The tiled floor radiated heat through the towel. It felt like being locked up in an unmoving summertime car. With no air conditioning. (The stones of the "stone spa", were in the floor tiles, I guess. There were no warm stones placed on your back, or anything like that. It was just like a really really hot sauna.)
I flipped over before my five minutes was up. The sweat began to soak through my pjs in unlikely places; like my shins and forearms. I saw that there was some kind of laminated pamphlet in the corner of my stall. I reached for it. Thank Godness, I thought, a distraction.
It was a cartoon, in Japanese of a family, going to a spa. I think. A mom, dad, grandpa and little boy. The family seemed to be telling the boy that they were off to the bath house. The boy exclaimed something with glee. Then he got reprimanded. I guess he was too joyful. I flipped through trying to make my own little English language story for them...but I just...couldn't...concentrate.
I looked up. Five more minutes. I wondered if this was some kind of awful device to cook foreigners.
Okay...we had all had enough at about the same time and got the hell out of there. We were soaked. It was break time. We sat in the cafe-style break room comparing notes about how hot we were. Sue got up and came back with a tiny scoop full of salt and distributed a little to each of us. "We're supposed to eat it" she said. The salt was strong and weird tasting. We sat in the break room for a long time, chatting, watching the rain and reading Japanese magazines.
We went back in for round two.
Ahhhh. It still sucked. But, we endured. Although, none of us felt able enough to do the recommended third round. We just hung out for "break", basking in the toxin-free-ness that we were supposed to have gained from the sweat bath, and decided to call it a day.
Would I go back? Well, sure. The sense of relief you got upon exiting the hot room, made it almost worth it. And who knows...maybe I dropped a pound or two in the process?
