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We are here in Aizu-Wakamatsu at the Harataki Hotel and we're really excited because they are finally allowing
people with tattoos into their onsen.
So, if you're coming to Japan and you want to use an onsen, we're going to give you a little guide
so you don't make a fool of yourself
and you know exactly what to do. Come let me show you the ways of the onsen.
M-Are we about to get naked on camera. S-Let's get naked girl. M-About to get naked on camera.
But we're gonna be in separate rooms though. It's not co-ed. Separate rooms. Men and women.
Scoundrel!
All right, rule number one: make sure you know which one is for men
and which one is for women. Usually women have a red curtain outside and men have blue.
But if for some reason they don't have color coded curtains,
which has happened to me before, you're gonna want to memorize this tiny tiny kanji to tell the difference.
But, luckily here, it's pretty easy.
(Music)
All to myself. So whether you're staying in an onsen hotel, or you're just visiting an onsen,
they will have little tiny lockers for you to put in your like wallet and your cell phone and stuff. You can lock it up
and these keys are waterproof. But for the rest of your clothing,
we're just going to use a basket. You're gonna wanna dump all your clothing into one of these baskets here.
And then, you want to get naked. Sorry guys can't watch this part.
(Music)
Time to test your knowledge of the onsen.
I'm gonna be throwing out some onsen facts to you guys. Some are true and some are terribly false.
We'll see how many of them you guys actually can call out for me. Right over here we have a lovely little basket.
It's filled with hair elastics. That is because it is extremely
rude to get into the onsen bathtub area with your hair touching the water. Is that true or false?
It's true. Do not let your hair drag in the water.
That's for you to guys if you have long hair. Imagine the gigantic hair balls that will form over
all the time of people. It would be like a monster rising from the ocean. Get your hair up.
Onsen fact: true or false? You must wet your hair before getting into the onsen.
This is actually an undecided one. Some people say you don't have to wash your hair
but you must get it wet before getting into the onsen. Other people say it doesn't matter just as long as your hair doesn't actually
touch the water. So I choose to not wash my hair today, but I will be pulling it up quite firmly
and applying this super adorable headband to ensure that no hair touches the water.
(Music)
Most onsens will be providing you with two towels.
There will be a big towel for you to dry off with, and then there'll be this little, teeny tiny towel.
What is this tiny towel for? This teeny towel actually has two purposes.
You can use it to scrub your body clean
and then also you can use it as a manner towel. So a lot of people that get naked will take this towel and just
kind of like cover up their lady or man bits when they're transferring between
showering and bathing and back and forth again; so get your tiny manner towel ready.
(Music)
Now this over here is the onsen. It is not a bathtub for you to clean your body in. That is a massive faux pas.
When you come here the first thing you should do this clean off. Get off the lotion, the deodorant
that you're wearing before you go to soak in the actual onsen. You will be very highly judged
if you just step right into that hot tub. So guys, let's go get scrubbed.
(Music)
Now, most onsens will provide you with shampoo and conditioner and body soap and maybe even face soap
if they're fancy, but not all of them do. So if you're paying to get into just an onsen
you might want to bring a little bit of toiletries with you.
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This is an important ritual known as kuma kuma
Because there's been many people that have been visiting this onsen for like, years and years and years,
you don't want to kind of anger or disrespect the spirits.
So you scoop up a little bit of the water using this special bucket known as a karaoke.
And then you pour it back into the water.
That's total BS guys. I completely made that up.
This is an important bucket for getting your body all warm and clean.
(Music)
Yes, I'm cheating I am wearing a bathing suit. But normally, I should be naked right now.
Let's hit the open air bath.
(Music)
Let's talk about the real use of this bucket, shall we? You can use it for when you're actually washing
but the real intention is to help you ease your way into hot springs. A lot of onsen are
totally nuts hot like you put your feet in and you're like aaarghh!
You scoop up some water, and starting at your feet
you slowly warm up your body to get used to it. So let's get used to this frickin' scalding hot onsen.
(Water rushing & moving over rocks)
This is nice.
Guys, if you have your little modesty towel with you, you can pop it on the top of your head, like this, to keep it out
of the water. It's also quite nice if you dip it in cold water first.
But whatever you do, don't wring it into the onsen
It's considered very poor manners to do that. Just keep it up here
Now I know a lot of you guys feel uncomfortable with the idea of public nudity
But I gotta tell you if you come to Japan and you miss out on the chance to enjoy an onsen, guys
It's such a nice way to unplug. You can't bring your phone with you
You can't check Twitter, Instagram, YouTube. If you don't have another friend to come with,
you just got to kind of sit, enjoy the scenery, relax, and unplug
(background music)
Why have I never seen a baby pigeon? Where are they?
I'm not sure if I've ever used a semicolon correctly in my entire life.
It's always been a guess.
I just realized that I put a lot more effort into getting my cat to like me than I put effort into getting
people to like me.
Cats are so soft.
(Music)
Hmm. You know what? Your stomach thinks that all potatoes are mashed potatoes.
Delicious.
(Music)
I wonder what Martina's doing? Probably not being informative whatsoever.
She's such a slacker sometimes.
(Music)
In Japanese, there's actually a really nice phrase which means "naked friendship".
And the concept is that everyone is the same when they're naked.
Nobody wants to be naked. You can't tell if anybody's rich, or if anybody's poor.
We're all exactly the same, so don't worry about people looking at you and checking out your scars, or if you're overweight,
or if you have a weird tattoo. Nobody cares. Naked friendship. Come to Japan, enjoy an onsen, get naked.
So, this was a super fun shoot because Martina did all the work
and all I had to do was soak in a tub and look reflective and stuff like that.
We also only had an hour, so Martina did all the grunt work
and I I did the artsy shots, you could say, for, for the team.
(Bark)
(Music)
It's like my dream. You guys have no idea how much I love milk. This might sound strange to you, but after an onsen
it's actually kind of traditional to drink milk. Hence, the milk vending machine here. You got normal milk,
you've got yogurt milk, and you've got coffee flavored milk. Supposedly this started because milk was cheaper than buying soda.
Yeah, I don't know. All I know is that this is totally
amazing. Glass milk bottle!
Oh my god. It is so good. It is so full fat. This is like I feel like I'm drinking 4% milk.
This is unbelievable. I never would have expected milk to be something I'd want after being in like hot
soaking situation, but wow.
Icy cold milk.
(music, milk drinking)
Mmm. This is my dream
(music)
So we are ending our night here with an incredible experience. You guys should see where we are right now.
Yep. We're sitting at a table
on a river with a waterfall, and there's literally a tree like growing out of the side of the table. Right there.
That's the waterfall. If I wanted to I could jump into it, from here. Yep. Into the waterfall.
Hopefully you guys can hear us over the sound of the amazing roaring water.
Well this style of dining has actually got a name it's called kawadoko, and it means literally eating at a table by a river.
I kind of think of it like how if you say to somebody I'm going on a picnic (exactly)
it implies that you're gonna be like outdoors on the grass. If you tell someone you're gonna be eating
like, kawadoko, it means you're gonna be eating at this like, amazing
riverside magic.
This is an absolutely fantastic way to end your onsen experience. I'm so excited for this, gonna happen.
Can I just say, this right here is my retirement dream.
I really want to live by a running body of water. If I could listen to water like this, I will sleep like the dead.
And I'll have to pee all the time. It's, this, this is my dream right here. This is really special.
I feel like I'm 60 years old and happy. This is. What do you mean? You feel like you're sixty years old
and happy. Well because a lot of like old people are like...okay.
You know what?
Let's just drink some beer before you dig yourself a pit. Oh look at this frozen glass.
Oh my god.
This is so cold and wonderful. Oh my gosh. I can barely hold this girl.
Kampai.
Oh my god.
Let's start off our night right.
(Music)
So, that's it for this week's wonderful adventure.
This is our second time at Harataki Onsen. I love it here.
Mmhm.
I didn't even know that they had this available this time around
Eating by the waterfall, having great food, a wonderful onsen. This is really special to me guys. Good feels
right? I just, I feel great. You burnt the *baah* out of that girl.I didn't. I trusted you.
Word doesn't fill me, we got to get to eating. If you want information on how to get to the hotel, click on our blog post.
And we'll know all about how to get over here, and when this is in season and all that jazz
Kampai, everyone. Okay. Goodbye. Kampai.
(Music)