Bathing in Osaka

After a rather disappointing Saturday night on the town, our plan for Sunday was to visit Spa World. Spa World is a very large bath house with an indoor water park. There are two floors of themed baths (one floor for men and one floor for women; they rotate floors each month), and on the uppermost floor is the water park. Unfortunately, I hadn't known that there was a water park at Spa World, so I didn't bring my swimsuit to Osaka. Originally I thought I'd just stay in the baths while Julie and Sasha went swimming, but I relented and bought a cheap turquoise swimsuit so I could go with them. The fit wasn't perfect and I wasn't thrilled about wearing a bikini, but it worked well enough.

When we first arrived at Spa World, there was some confusion as to how to buy our admission tickets. Once we figured that out, we entered the first floor, which was essentially just a lobby with shoe lockers. As soon as we stepped inside the lobby we had to take off our shoes, and we wouldn't need them again until we left. We deposited our shoes and headed up to the women's floor.

From there we went to the dressing room, which was an extensive maze of lockers. It was a little intimidating once we realized how far we would have to walk naked to get from our lockers to the baths themselves. I think I was less uncomfortable than Sasha and Julie, but I didn't like it that much either. One thing that stressed me out a bit was my cut finger. That morning when I had changed the bandage it had started bleeding a lot again. I put on two bandaids and brought the rest of the box with me just in case. It was a good thing I did; I used the bathroom in the locker room, and as soon as I washed my hands, blood began to seep out the edges of the bandaids. Bleeding in the onsen is obviously a problem, so I went to the locker and plastered on several more bandaids. I overlapped them with the edges of the two original bandages and put on another layer for good measure. All in all, I think I wore six bandaids.

Once my finger was taken care of, we all stripped down and made our way to the baths. To get to the baths, you had to walk through a little corridor with water spraying sideways at you. We were a little confused; was the brief spray-down all that was necessary before we got into the bath? Usually at an onsen you have to scrub yourself thoroughly from head to toe and rinse all the soap off before you can go in the bath. But we didn't see a shower room, so we figured the rules were different here. We walked around looking at some of the baths. This month the women had the floor with the European-themed baths, and the men had the Asian-themed baths. There was a bath that looked like a Roman fountain, another that looked like a grotto, an outdoor one with a waterfall, and one with a glass floor that had sharks and fish swimming underneath it. I was disappointed that we couldn't see the fish at all, but then again, maybe it would've been unsettling to watch the sharks swimming below us. There was also a Swedish sauna and Greek herb baths. I liked the herb baths a lot; they smelled very good.

After visiting the Greek baths, we discovered that there was in fact a shower room. Since we weren't sure if it was mandatory, we decided to scrub down just in case. The shower room was pretty crowded so the three of us shared a shower station. The shower stations aren't actual stalls; they're more like little vanities separated by low walls. You sit on a little stool and spray yourself with a shower head or pour a basin of water over yourself. At Spa World, soap, shampoo and conditioner were provided, which was nice. They smelled pretty good, too.

We tried out most of the baths but skipped the sauna. I attempted to go into the freezing cold bath that was just outside of the sauna, but it was like stepping into Redfish Lake, so I got about thigh deep and gave up. All of the baths were quite nice, though the Atlantis one (with the fish) seemed a little run down. I liked standing under the waterfall in the outdoor bath and letting it pummel my shoulders. Sasha, Julie and I stuck together and chatted all the while. Sometimes people stared at us, but I didn't feel like they stared all that much more than they do when we're clothed, so I wasn't too uncomfortable. Actually, I felt more at ease naked around other women than I did wearing a swimsuit in a mixed crowd.

In addition to the baths, there was also a little cafe area where you could buy soft drinks, beer, and ice cream. There were TVs on the wall, and probably the most surreal moment of the day came when we sat down and watched golf naked while drinking our sodas. It was an odd and humorous situation to be in.

Once we had visited all the baths we were interested in, we decided to get into our swimsuits and head up to the water park. The water park was on the uppermost floor. It had a ceiling and walls, but one wall opened to the outside, so you could sit and look out over the city if you wanted. There were a few water slides, a lazy river, and a kids' play area. We hopped in the lazy river and drifted along, admiring the men in their swimsuits and silently cursing the happy couples making out in the pool. I have not seen so many displays of physical affection in all of my time in Kochi as I saw in one afternoon at Spa World. The lazy river was fun but slightly dangerous as many people were using float tubes. You had to watch out that you didn't get run over. One couple seemed hell bent on drowning Sasha; they nearly ran into her several times. At one point they forced her under some pipes that were pouring out cold water, and she shrieked incredibly loudly. That part was pretty funny, actually.

While we were in the pool I tried to keep my cut hand above the water as much as possible. The bandaids seemed to be holding up well, but I was nervous that at some point I would start leaking blood. It was always at the back of my mind and I think I was a little uneasy because of it. I got a bit impatient when Sasha and Julie wanted to stand at the edge of the pool for a long time and stare at some guys playing with a beach ball. Partly I didn't like holding still in one place for so long because I felt we were slightly in the way, but I also kind of felt like a creep for watching the guys for so long. There was also a chance that they might've been high school students, for all we knew, which would just add to the creepy factor. I kept my mouth shut, though, and eventually we went back to floating along the lazy river. Once we were thoroughly pruny, we decided it was time to leave. We went back down to the locker room, took off our swimsuits, took showers, got dressed, and headed out.

Though we had bought entry tickets at the beginning of our visit, we also had to go through a check-out process before we left. We returned a wristband that kept track of what we bought in the little food court, and paid for the additional expenses. All in all, it only cost about 1300 yen each for the whole day's entertainment. It was incredibly cheap. Just going to the movies costs about 2000 yen, and then all you get to do is sit in a dark room for two hours. We spent the whole afternoon bathing, swimming and people watching. We were all quite satisfied with the experience.

Although the baths at Spa World were shabbier than I had expected, and in spite of my misgivings about going into the water with my finger wrapped in bandages, I think Spa World was my favorite part of the trip. It was a relaxing and inexpensive way to spend the day. I'd be interested in going again when they rotate the men's and women's floors.