Nice Bath Day

Above image from sasakisaki9646

Everyone loves a bath, especially Japanese people. There’s a whole culture of bathing in Japan, with even a manga, anime, and live action movies called Thermae Romae (a comedy/slice of life that compares bathing culture between modern Japan and ancient Rome, both bath loving cultures ((A must read)). With it being late in the year and getting colder every day, no surprise they would come up with a day called “Nice Bath Day” on November 26th (11/26) #いい風呂の日. The word for “nice” in Japanese is いい (ii) which looks like the number 11. 26 can also be pronounced as “furo” which is also the word for “bath” in Japanese.

In Japan there’s a interesting tradition before you sit in the bath tub, you clean yourself first!! Yes, despite going into a bath where there’s water to clean yourself off in you sit down off to the side and rinse and shampoo. There’s a small area off to the side of the bath where you sit down and clean yourself properly, both your hair and body. After rinsing off the soap and shampoo you can go into the bath.

The main reason they do this is hygiene. After all, you’re sitting in the bath for a while and don’t want to soak in your own filth. Another reason that goes with hygiene is families sometimes share the same bath water after it’s drawn to save on costs. You would have a big water bill if multiple members of the family kept filling up the bath with water after every use.

There are also public baths in Japan. Basically it’s a big communal bath business where people go specifically to bathe and relax in big baths or even special baths like electric baths or mineral baths. There are even whole public bath “theme parks.” Some people even go to relax and talk with their neighbors or friends as it’s place you can talk for a while, get clean, and relax.

Some Japanese apartments don’t come with baths or maybe their homes bath heater needs to be fixed so people go to public baths in these instances. It’s just a few hundred yen to enter and you can use the bath for pretty much as long as you want. Bring your own soap, shampoo, and change of clothes then you can use all the facilities in the public bath, some even have a sauna.

For tourists in Japan the bath experience is also something they dream about. Not your normal bath of course but a private bath at an ryokan while drinking sake (alcohol) or even an outdoor bath, whether public or private. Of course Japanese people love a big bath too as it gives you extra room to stretch your legs and much more comfortable than inside a small tub.

Not just humans love a good hot bath too.

So the next time you take a bath you can think of “Nice Bath Day.” If you don’t take a bath but are traveling to Japan it’s a must do!! It’s very enjoyable and relaxing to sit in a tub filled will hot water, whether in your hotel rooms bathroom or in a public bath/onsen, especially after walking around all day.