In Hot Water: Onsen and Sento Bathing in Japan

So, yeah, today's, well, we're going to be talking about one of the mainstays of Japanese culture, really, isn't it? It's the onsen, which, well, what is an onsen?

Well, I think technically it gets translated to a hot spring bath, doesn't it? Like a natural hot spring

bath.

Yeah.

You do get natural hot spring water in some neighborhood bath houses as well that would be called cento that aren't onsen.

So I guess you need to figure in the leisure aspect of taking

the bath at an onsen perhaps.

I don't know if you think that's accurate or not.

Whereas the cento is more of a public utility or originally was a public utility.

The onsen feels more like a leisure facility.

Yeah, like certainly these days when you sort of think of onsen, I tend to think of like, you know, fairly luxurious, traditional ryokan, like Japanese inns and things.

Yeah, me

too.

And so they're sort of spread across the country.

And some regions have more than others, don't they? Like I'd say Kyushu is quite well known for its onsen.

Tohoku has got a lot, hasn't it, of like onsen towns and things.

I did read somewhere that there are like 27,000 onsen sources across the country.

Is that right? Wow.

Which is quite a lot, isn't it? And then I don't know.

The thing I read was there were 3,000 onsen destinations, but I'm not quite sure what they meant by destination.

Are they talking about an onsen town or are they actually talking about an onsen facility? I would imagine there's more than 3,000 facilities given all the ryokan.

Yeah.

I mean, because when people talk about onsen, it can sort of mean various things, can't it? It could mean like a fully sort of developed sort of hot spring resort town, couldn't it? With lots of big hotels and traditional inns and things.

Or it could be just like a tiny little, I don't know, like a little shack up in the mountains somewhere with one bubbling outdoor hot spring.

And that's also an onsen, isn't it?