Onsen

One of the relaxing things the Japanese do is take hot baths, called furo 風呂 , and based on the principle of the hotsprings, onsen 温泉 , that are overabundant in this country. And we have a fabulous one right here in Nichi machi (our neighbourhood). It's open till 3 o'clock in the morning and you can have beer and food too. Tonight Mads, Colin and myself went there at around 9 pm and the only thing you need to bring is a towel to dry yourself. I don't have picture of our onsen but you get an idea of what it looks like from this picture taken from the internet.
Apart from the finnish sauna (dry) and the turkish bath (steam) they have these hot tubs inside and outside with various temperatures (from 40 up to 43 and a cold one with just 15 degrees. What you do is first of all scrub yourself down with soap and shampoo and after that you just go and sit in the hot tubs. You can soak in one and then move on to the next one with a slightly higher temperature. They also have jetstream massage and some have coloured water (due to the minerals, I think). You can stay as long as you like and all that for the amazing sum of 500 Yen.
It's going to be a once a week happening I guess...cause I came out two hours later in a total 'Zen' frame of mind and looking like a wrinkled prune.