Onsen trip

Onsen is a Japanese term for hot spring. Some people would call it Japanese spa. Japanese love to soak themselves in hot tubs. Since it's difficult to enjoy onsen every day, it is a norm for Japanese to soak in hot tub after a good shower every night, at home. They may soak in the bathtub alone or sometimes with the family members. I find this good because it is a good opportunity for busy parents to interact with their kids and get to know what's happening in the kids daily life.

Enjoying hot tub with family members...

As you would imagine, the Japanese are quite OK letting their children see them naked and the kids are quite used to seeing naked parents because they were brought up that way ever since they were babies.

A baby enjoying hot tub with mommy or daddy

Even monkeys know how to enjoy onsen!

So, in case you are interested to come to Japan and explore the onsen, below are some pointers on how to enjoy onsen or public bath in Japan.

1. Make sure you clean your body thoroughly using the facility provided before entering the onsen. This is also a chance for the body to gradually get used to the hot temperature of the onsen, which is usually around 42 degree celcius. A drastic increase of temperature is bad for the health and can be harmful instead.

2. Now you can soak yourself in the onsen. Make sure you don't wear anything. Not even swimming suits or undies! About the duration, some people think that it is good to soak as long as possible. This is not the case. When you feel yourself starting to perspire, and that the sweat starting to roll down from your forehead, it's about time to stop yourself from soaking. Some people soak for 20 minutes. Some people soak for 10 minutes. It depends on the individual. But you can take a rest and use some other facilities like cold tub or sauna then soak for the second or third time if you want.

3. After soaking, make sure you do not take shower. This would wash off the active ingredient which is included in the onsen that is supposedly be good for the health. When you wipe your body, do not wipe too hard too cause that would brush off the ingredients that had been absorded to the skin. You would like to get the maximum effect from the soaking wouldn't you?

4. After you are out from the onsen, make sure you hydrate yourself since you had lost a lot of fluid by perspiration during the soaking.


It takes about 30 minutes before you are back to your normal self. Well, a lot of energy is lost during the soaking. So, make sure you take plenty of rest before you drive and start your journey back.

So, why suddenly lessons on onsen?
Haha...it's because we just went to onsen last weekend! The place that we went to was not too far from our home. It was about 30-min trip by car.

Kamiyama onsen with ryokan (Japanese-style hotel)

We didn't stay at the hotel, we only used the onsen facility which was opened for the public

These Japanese characters literally mean: Good onsen heals the soul

Fee per entry: 600yen for adults and 300 yen for kids

The key for storing our shoes

Make sure you don't enter wrongly! In this particular onsen, the entrance with blue curtain and Japanese character 男 is for male and the red curtain with Japanese character 女 is for female

Sorry guys, no cameras are allowed in the onsen.
Besides there is no way we would show photos of us soaking in onsen! *wink* Oh, a reminder, do not stare at other people when you enter the onsen. Mind your own business ok. Actually no one would really care if you were fat, thin, old, saggy or pretty. Everyone just wants to enjoy the hot tub and feels good about it. It might be awkward at first, but just make that 'blur' face and you will surely be accepted as one of them...:)

We spent about 40 minutes in the onsen (which included the shower time and etc...). After finished with the soaking, we ended up being quite dehydrated, as expected. So it's time to rehydrate ourselves! Don't worry, we had plenty of choices to choose from!

Fancy anything from here?

You get to choose hot drinks (buttons in red) and cold drinks (buttons in blue)

Choices vary from carbonated drinks, fruit juice, chilled tea/coffee to hot tea/coffee

Some Japanese may fancy beer

Some people might want to have something heavier like ice-cream

Traditionally Japanese people drink milk or milk coffee after hot-spring

And somehow three of us love that tradition! It was just simply oishii!! It is highly recommended!

While waiting to recover fully, you can choose to play games too!

Which Sya always enjoys after a good hot tub

Looking fresh after soaking in onsen!

Refreshing our eyes watching the nature...

We bought the hungry Sya a baked sweet potato before heading home...