Something I really miss from Japan are the public bath houses, called "sentou" in Japanese. Let me explain how much they rule.

Let me describe a typical sentou. Open from about mid to late afternoon until early morning, they are large buildings divided into two halves, one for each gender. You pay a small fee each time you go that's about four dollars. After paying, you enter a locker room where you strip down to nothing, towels are not allowed in the bathtubs. Usually, you'd bring a basket or tote of your soap, shampoo and even toothbrush. You take your tote and enter the bathroom. The bathroom isn't a toilet, it's bathroom, in the literal sense of the word.

There are, let's call them stalls, along the wall, each equipped with a shower head and a small plastic stool to sit on. Each sentou usually provides a plastic basin for customers' use as well. Grab a basin find an open stall and wash yourself. You can use as much water as you want and it never goes cold! Scrub yourself silly.

Okay, so now you're pretty clean. You can stop scrubbing for a bit because it's on to my favorite part, the giant tubs of clean, hot water. Just step right in, but you should enter slowly because the water is very near the point of scalding! You won't burn yourself if you get in slowly. Then you just sit there for a few minutes. Let the hot water relax all your muscles, clean all your pores, and warm your body up. Ahh.

When you're finished with that tub get out and take another shower and clean yourself again! After you've cleaned again try going to another tub. Many sentou have tubs with herbs, bath salts, or jetstreams, or even high pressure waterfalls to massage your back and head. Most sentou have an electrified tub. You get in and the water is electrified and feels really weird and causes muscle spazisms if your not careful where you put your body parts. It feels strange but good and is probably awesome for your muscles.

After you've had enough of the tubs you can then jump into the steam room, which is great if you're feeling sick. I had a throat and sinus cold and after going to the steam room for five minutes each day for a few days, my symptoms were gone. The steam room is a great remedy for colds. I have successfully killed off a few colds before they started just by using the steam room at the sentou in Japan.

Sentou also usually have a regular sauna which is dry hot air, rather than wet hot air. Sitting in the sauna helps your body sweat out all the impurities in your system. And on the opposite end of the scale, each sentou, without fail, has a cold water tub. It's something that I didn't use very often, but it will surely wake you up and leave you refreshed, especially in the summer.

Many people from the west are weary of the sentou. I don't know why. Some say bathing with other men is gay. Those that say that are ignorant fools. I barely even notice the other guys there. Nobody bothers you and everyone is polite. So that argument itself is gay. Some say it's dirty bathing in public with other people. No way José!! The cleanest I've felt was always after a good hour+ long sentou session.

This is definately one thing about Japan I will always miss. The bathtub in my bathroom just doesn't compare to the mighty sentou.