conversation with a nearby naked man

We took a train across town to Takaido. Takaido station is on the Inokashira line in Suginami. A polluted river runs past the station and under the street. After coming out of the station we turned off the street and followed a path along the river. We walked a short distance under now green cherry trees and found a bench. We sat here, lethargic from the sun and burgers we had for lunch. I laid back on the bench and listened to the wind and the children playing in the daycare nearby. Old timers rolled past on wheelchairs pushed by middle-aged sons and daughters. Yui browsed porn on his phone and showed me scandalous videos of oily, big-tittied Jap chicks dancing in some night club. It was decided that we should go there some time. Some time when I am not this tired, I say.

We sat in the sun for a while and I stared up at a blank sky. There was nothing forever beyond the two condos that flanked my view. We had come to Takaido to visit the health spa nearby. We wanted to soak our weary bones in the healing waters of the spa’s onsen. After our breather by the river we headed to place and bought tickets and rented cheap brown towels. But we didn’t go in right away. Still sleepy, we needed a nap, so we went downstairs to the cafeteria. Just adjacent to the lunchroom there is a bank of lazy boys and two flat screens turned down low. I don’t know about Yui but I slept for about forty minutes. I was out, quietly snoring and enjoying the outrageous dreams that usually come to me during a midday nap.

Feeling refreshed we finally went upstairs to enjoy hot brown water and avoid looking at saggy balls. We undress and leave our junk in the lockers, wearing nothing but the locker key on an elastic band around the wrist. (Some people choose to put the elastic key bracelet around their ankle, making them look like an aquatic parolee under house arrest.) Onsen etiquette dictates that you must shower before heading to the hot baths. Upon entering, it is immediately apparent that the showers are different from the western style. Instead of standing in a stall or even in a shower room, you sit on a plastic stool and wash using a hand held hose and shower head. There is also a bowl for your convenience so you may douse yourself with water. It is not unreasonable to find some guys shaving, brushing their teeth, and doing any number of other things that one usually does in privacy.

Washed, I headed for the outdoor section of the onsen. The little courtyard has three pools. One that contains ionized water, which to me might as well be tap water, and two connected pools of mineral laden spring water from 1600 meters below the surface of the earth. The first pool is quite hot, and the water flows down an inclined stream of sorts, scattered by stepping stones, and enters the large main pool where it only pretty hot. Here we spend most of our time, alternating ten minutes in the water and maybe five minutes on a bamboo bench or a cold flat rock like a stool. It is mighty relaxing to soak in the onsen water. Due to the high mineral content, a good portion of it being salt, the water has a strange viscosity and texture. You are also much more buoyant in this soup, and I wish they would install handles on the pool floor so you could easily prevent yourself from floating away.

By this time it was evening and the sun was gone, though the air was still warm and the sky was about half way between its daytime blue and nighttime near-black. A star or two was out and the moon hid behind the scraggly branches of a sickly cherry tree. The mood was austere. No one spoke. There is also a steam room but I didn’t go in. I didn’t fee like stepping into a room full of solid heat and walls, floor, and ceiling coated with sweat. Not today. I closed my eyes and breathed in the steam wafting up from the hot pool.

I am not quite honest when I say that no one speaks. When people come in groups they do speak quietly, but most onsen denizens come alone and sparking up a conversation with a nearby naked man is not very Japanese. Yui and I always banter about the usual shit, and often crack jokes about the size of the Japanese penis or the droopiness of old testicles.

Many men carry around a small towel with them that can be used for one of three things: it can be folded and put on the head, it can be used as a mat when sitting on a bench or a rock, or it can be used to cover ones genitals in embarrassment or modesty or both. The latter is most often employed and I think this is the sole purpose of the towels while the other uses are merely a ruse or convenient secondary uses. About one of the most offensive onsen fouls one could commit is to soak or rinse the towel in the onsen water. Apparently, the little towel should never be placed in the onsen water. I find this strange because the towel covers the nads and the nads are allowed in the water. But I remind myself that this is Japan, and in Japan many things do not make sense.

After about an hour slowly cooking in brine we rinsed and off and headed back down to the cafeteria for some hard earned dinner. We ate beef curry with fried pork cutlet and drank beer. The curry at the spa is quite good and only 500 yen or so. I also had soft serve vanilla ice cream for desert. After that it was back to the recliners for another power nap before the ride home.

And that was basically the end of my wonderful last Thursday.