On my last day in Japan, I decided to bite the bullet and go to the spa.
I know: such hard work, right?
But bear with me: by “spa” I mean “traditional mineral baths,” and by “traditional mineral baths” I mean…actually, that brings me straight to my next point. How many naked Japanese people would you have to see doing the thing you intend to do before you’re comfortable following suit?
For me it turns out that the answer is “Two, but it has to be my thing exactly.”
The LaQua Spa is located right next to the Tokyo Dome, home of the Yomiuri Giants (think: Japanese Yankees). The Dome itself, I read, is held up solely by air pressure; it’s 0.3% higher inside than outside. Which is both very cool and an excellent metaphor for the process of getting comfortable getting naked.
You’re not allowed to use the baths if you have tattoos; I didn’t find out about that until I was there. And then I found myself making a list of the people I know who might have gotten all the way to the door only to have to turn and go again. And wondering why I should be rewarded for being afraid of mistakes, for hating needles, for my hopeless indecisiveness, for never having liked any part of myself enough to want to draw permanent attention to it. Here, though, it was suddenly as if I had Made A Choice, as if it were a question of purity. I suppose that if you go far enough around the world, a few things are bound to turn upside-down.
The guidebook suggested trying to go into the actual baths–murky, bubbling and still, hot and cold, lovely–without the modesty towel provided. As it turns out, the Japanese definition of “modesty towel” differs substantially from my own, and so I found myself in the anteroom with…you know. A towel. Like, a bath towel. I’d left the little washcloth-sized thing back in my locker; I’d assumed it was for drying my hair or something.
Right; no.
Because there were dozens of women of all ages heading in and out through both doors with either nothing at all, or with just the tiny washcloth thing held delicately by their waists, wrists lightly settled on hipbones.
And it turns out that there comes a point when the difference in internal and external pressures is sufficient; when being the Western woman wrapped in a giant towel feels more awkward than becoming, through nudity, invisible.
And it was so, so, so worth it.