天の湯

Traditional Japanese bath houses or sento usually open around 4pm. If you fancy a soak before then, you will need to search out what is called a "super sento."


Larger and more up-market, drive-in super sento have replaced the smaller, family-run bath houses in places like Nagoya. Only really Kyoto among Japanese cities has a large number of smaller, more intimate sento.

A good example of a super sento is Ten no Yu up the hill to the left from the Ueda subway station on the Tsurumai Line. There is a spacious rotemburo (outside bath) and sun lounge for topping up the tan and Vitamin D level, two saunas, a massage parlor and jacuzzi.


An early morning soak and sauna is a great way to shake off any hangover and leave you feeling much happier about life.

Ten no Yu
Tenpaku-ku, Ueda 1-703
Tel: 052 807 1123
Admission 700 yen
Map of Ten no Yu

© JapanVisitor.com

Yahoo Japan Auction Service
Japanese Friends
Tokyo Apartments Search
Japan Job Search
Rough Guide To Japan
Tags
Japan
Tokyo
Kyoto
Nagoya
Japanese

京都銭湯看板

Along the tiny Kamiya River in western Kyoto, just off Nishi Oji Dori, is a great old sento.

It has a standard entrance, with the banto-san - the person whom you pay - seated inside on a chair that overlooks both male and female dressing rooms.

(There is nothing odd about this. The banto is usually the owner, and he or she will wander in and out of the bath while you and many others are completely nude. A wall, of course, separates the female and male dressing rooms and baths.)

The interior was fairly basic: a few baths, a high ceiling with a skylight, and a sauna.

On the outside of the sento though was a wood sign that bore the standard symbol for public bath: 湯 (yu). It had been carved and had worn well with age.

Today public baths have an electric sign in the shape of the same kanji. This sento is the only one we have ever seen with an old wood sign.

© JapanVisitor.com

Yahoo Japan Auction Service
Japanese Friends
Tokyo Apartments Search
Japan Job Search
Rough Guide To Japan
Tags
Japan
Tokyo
Kyoto
Sento Sign
Japanese

銭湯のネオン

Coming back from a party in north Kyoto, we came upon this wonderful neon sign.

The picture at right is seen from the rear, which means that the kanji is inverted.

Jutting out of the second story of a building on Kitaoji Dori, not far from the Kyoto Botanical Gardens, it alerts one to the small public bath (sento) tucked into a nearby side street.

The reading of the neon character is "yu" - ゆ - which is one way to read the first of the two characters 湯 in public bath.

To see the same sign from the front - and therefore in its correct form - look at the photo below left.

The warmth and simplicity of the sign beckons one to the bath house.

It is old and ordinary. No fancy baths, just one story, a beat beat up: perfect on a cold night.


© JapanVisitor.com

Yahoo Japan Auction Service

Book a Japanese Hotel with Bookings

Japanese Friends

Japan Job Search

Tags

Japan Tokyo Kyoto Sento Sign Japanese