Japan’s Onsens: Where I Can Find Serenity, Joy, and Comfort

When I was in middle school my school organized a trip to a ryokan, a sort of Japanese bed and breakfast, at a place near Mt. Fuji. It was my first year living in Japan, and while I was excited to stay in tatami mat rooms and enjoy a nice, homemade teishoku meal, there was one thing about this trip that I was dreading: the onsen.

The ryokan had no individual showers to the rooms, and we were instead directed to go to a nearby onsen to bathe. Onsens are public baths, a popular leisure activity in Japan, and serve as a place to socialize, relax, and de-stress. I was used to onsen culture with my family or complete strangers, but going with my classmates was a new level of discomfort. Even if we were all girls and in theory it’s all the same, it felt awkward because they were my classmates. I saw them almost everyday, and we all sort of knew each other, but with many of them I would never talk outside of class.

This wasn’t going to be fun.

I didn’t want to cause a scene though, and so hurdling my own embarrassment, I decided to go with the flow, knowing that it would only be one night.