My onsen experience

Today I went to my first onsen. For those of you who missed my last post or just have really bad memories, an onsen is a Japanese hot spring. When I invisioned the onsen prior to actually visiting it, I imagined that there would not be that many people there, like maybe 8 or 9 women quietly relaxing in the water or discreetly washing themselves off in a corner somewhere.... I was mistaken. There were at least 40 or 50 other women and unless they were just arriving or about to leave, they were all naked. Jenn and I were a little freaked out at first since neither of us had ever in our lives been exposed to quite so much nudity. After nervously stripping down and wrapping towels around ourselves, we entered the bathing area and realized that holding the towels around ourselves seemed about as awkward as being naked since pretty much all the other women were completely out in the open. Most of these women did not seem to care at all about covering anything up, the majority just walked around without any towels, a few would hold little towels in front of their nether regions when walking outside of the tubs, but that was about it. We gradually let our towels fall a little lower and made our way over to some empty bathing stools. It is absolutely essential that before entering the actual springs you wash yourself off because the Japanese are kind of anal about cleanliness. They don't just sit down, quickly rinse off and then hop in, these women scrub. I swear some of them must have sat there scrubbing with soap and shampoo for a good 2o minutes. Jenn and I didn't put quite so much effort in since we had both just showered earlier in the day, but we did the required rinsing and then decided to head to the outdoor springs. Once we were in the water things felt a bit less awkward. There were still some curious stares from women and children alike, but that was to be expected, especially since Jenn and I were the only female gaijin (foreigners) at the onsen. I should probably mention that children of both genders are allowed on both the male and female sides of the onsen, so there were little boys sitting in the tubs with their mothers and, according to my friend Ivan, little girls sitting in the tubs with their fathers. All of us were particularly shocked by the latter section of the previous statement and agreed that while it might be considered acceptable in America for mothers to bring their sons into a public bath, it would never in a million years be considered okay to have little girls sitting in the water with their fathers and a bunch of other naked men. In Japan it's just not an issue and is viewed as a completely normal practice, so that was kind of interesting. After a few minutes the initial shock of our complete exposure started to wear off and Jenn and I started to feel more comfortable relaxing in the extremely warm water. I'm really glad that I did not go to the onsen with just the guys because I think I would have had a much harder time adjusting to my surroundings. Apparently going to onsen is a somewhat social activity and while some women seemed to be on their own, the majority had friends or relatives with them to keep them company. Jenn and I not only provided each other with company and conversation, but we also provided one another with words of encouragement to get through the embarrassing parts. Overall my experience at the onsen was a really good one and I'm very glad I did it. Jenn and I both agreed that if anything, visiting an onsen could actually improve a person's body image because there are literally women of all ages, shapes, and sizes who use the springs and none of them seem to take any shame in showing off their bodies. It's sort of nice to know that the majority of women don't have perfect bodies like we see in the magazines and in turn that makes me feel better about my own body because I feel more normal. I think that I'd like to go back to an onsen at somepoint and the fact that I can honestly say that makes me kind of happy.