Public Spa (sentou)

Today at 11 AM my friend picked me up from my house, and we headed to a public spa located in North Shiga.  This place is like a recreation centre: it got few spas, saunas, shops and restaurants inside.

We decided to enjoy spa first then have lunch buffet.  I think it is really weird and hard thing to imagine for foreign people that Japanese people get naked in front of strangers and friends and share a bath in public.  At the changing room, people take off their clothes and become totally naked.  (no photos, of course!)  Before taking bath, you need to wash your body first as a manner, then enjoy few different types of spas and saunas.  We enjoyed ‘massaging spa’ (water jet massages your body), roten-buro (outdoor spa) and misty sauna.  The misty sauna was really nice!  Super humid and hot.  A cool air felt so nice afterwords.

We felt it was enough, so we got out from the spa and started to get dressed in the changing room.  Then suddenly my friend said ” I don’t feel good….” and a second later she was laying on the floor!  She fainted!  I guess the hot water made her dizzy.

I let her rest for a while.  Luckily there’s a “women only” relaxing room with massage chairs and a tatami flooring room upstairs.  We stayed there for about half an hour, getting massaged and laying on tatami, then moved to a buffet restaurant.

This restaurant is famous for its Ebi Fry (deep-fried prawn katsu).  😀

It was nice ♪ I enjoyed other Japanese food as well, such as kiridashi-daikon, nanohana pasta with bamboo shoots etc.

Gochiso-sama-deshita!  🙂