For some reason the Japanese prefer bathing together more than they do alone. Why this is the case has eluded me in all of my nine months here. I liked to bathe with other people too....when I was three years old and my mom took rather embarassing pictures of me and my cousins in the bathtub. I believe I might have peed at the time. Regardless, the point is, that was the last time I bathed with others...until I came to Japan, that is.

I gave it another shot in Nagano, after a long day of Snowboarding. "Hell," I thought, "why not? It can't be that bad, can it? I mean, everyone here does it, right?"

It was, uhm, well, it was...it was ok...

It was called an Onsen, meaning that it was a naturally heated sulfer water bath. You can always tell an onsen because it smells like poopy farts. For some wierd reason, however, God saw it fit to make this sulfuric water somehow cleaner than normal water. Go figure. Funny guy, that God.

So, you get totally buck-ass naked in the changing room and then you go into this outer chamber and wash your bits and pieces. In this onsen we squatted on buckets in rows, sort of like a prison. Pretty wierd, but we're still ok here, it's no big deal. It's just other dudes shlongs. Grow up, right?

Once you're all clean you go into the bath chamber. So I walk out into the bath area....and see about fifty dudes piled inside a 10x20 foot little pool. Hmm. Well, can't back out now, right? Just take the plunge into the pool full-o'-dong. So i did.

I later learned that I made my first mistake when I walked over to the bath. You see, you're supposed to cover yourself up with the tiny towel that they give you, but I just flopped on over in front of God and everybody. I believe I might have even pumped my elbows. Oh well.

So you're in the bath, right, and now comes the slightly awkward time where you jockey for personal space, which, in this particular case, was almost non-existent.

"Hey man, stop touching me. Are you touching me?"
"Move over a bit for Chrissakes. Is that your elbow?"
"It certainly is not!"
"Did you just touch my ass?"
"I hope not. That was me that hit your thigh there, though."
"Well then who just touched my ass?"
"Dude, cover yourself for heavens sake."
"It's not my fault! I'm very bouyant!"

And so on.

I later learned that my second mistake was not having a second towel. I got my little toilet-paper-square of a towel soaking wet in the tub, so then what do I do? I gotta dry off with something after the post-wash-washing, right? Well, I was SOL:

"Hey man, can I borrow your towel?"
"Just hold on a minute, I have to dry myself."
"You've been drying yourself for twenty minutes, C'mon man, I'm just, like, hanging out here."
"Well maybe you should have brought another towel."
"I realize that. But it's a little late now, isn't it?"
"It's not a big deal, grow up."
"I am grown up, i'm just cold, that's all, it's not normally that size."
"That's not what I meant. Here, you can have it now."
"I just saw you dry your ass on that."
"Do you want it or not?"
"Yeah. You're a pretty clean guy, i suppose."

So it was a comedy of errors. And although it was relaxing for a bit, I guess, I told myself that if I was ever going to go to another Onsen, it's going to have to be at an off-peak hour, to say the least. I hear that in Hokkaido they have an Onsen that a bunch of Monkeys go in and use as a toilet. It's very popular. Perhaps I'll have to check that one out. (cough).

But yesterday I decided to chance the whole deal again.

I went with Obata, (whom I will I will no longer refer to as my supervisor, and will henceforth just refer to as my friend) to a totally shit-kicking public bath in Toyama.

This place was unbelievable. They had themed baths for crying out loud. There were two baths specially gussied up for the cherry blossom season: in one they had smashed up a bunch of cherry blossoms in order to color it pink, and in the other they had smashed up some sort of fragrant seaweed to color it green.

In addition to those baths, they had one that was like an easy chair surrounded by hot water, another in which you sat in a giant cereal bowl of hot water, and yet another where you chilled on a hot marble rock slab with three inches of steaming water flowing around you. Aside from those, you could also go into this one pool that was as hot as balls, seriously, it was out-of-control hot. Then, of course, they had the "electric bath" in which they ran a low voltage current of electricity through the water. Now, I'm not sure who thought of that idea, but it is clearly not safe. It's awesome, but it is not safe. Who the hell was the first Japanese person to try that one out? Who in the world said "Oh, here we go, I got an idea. You know how we always sit and chill in water? Well how about this, let's electrocute ourselves!! Eh?! How about it? People have done it before, right? It'll be like dropping a toaster in the bath, except we won't die!"

My kidneys went numb and all the hair on my body stood stick-straight up. Yes, all of the hair. Needless to say, I loved it.

There was practically nobody there. We had whole baths to ourselves. I didn't want to leave.

In one night Obata managed to show me that the Japanese public bathing experience can be worth fighting and dying for. And given my failure of a first experience, I have five words for him:

Well done, sir. Well done.