How to Enjoy Onsen – Japanese Hot Springs

I recently visited my home country of Japan. I got to visit Hakone which is about 2 hours from Tokyo and very famous for natural hot springs. This week I’ll take you there and show you how to enjoy the hot springs in Japan. Have a great Thanksgiving and I’ll see you again next week.

This is the entrance for women. This is for men. If there are no signs in English use your best educated guess or ask. (You will be very lucky if they understand English though.) This hot springs hotel has outside bath and inside bath. I’m going to take you to the outside bath. You put your hotel slippers in the rack and let’s go outside. Here you completely disrobe and put your clothes in one of the baskets. No bathing suits allowed. The hotel should give you a big towel and small towel. Take only the small towel and proceed to the bathing area.

It was kind of spooky at night so I went back in the morning before the breakfast. Before you dip yourself in the hot spring, make sure you take a shower. Never, ever, ever, ever, ever put a soapy towel, soapy hair, or soapy body in the bathtub. Since you are butt naked at this point you just hope that there’s nobody watching and none of the rocks have cameras inside. This hot spring is murky white with sulfur and other minerals that make your skin super smooth and are good for different health conditions.
Quietly dip yourself in the hot spring, let the minerals do their magic on your body while you enjoy the nature.

See how the pros setup futon at onsen ryokan in Japan:

I cannot believe it’s been a year since I started doing these Massage Monday videos. Thank you so much for your support, comments online and offline. Those mean a lot to me. Please keep them coming because I am going to continue my effort to share massage related tips every Monday. If you have any request or if you have any suggestions and ideas on how I can improve my videos please comment below or private message me.

Happy Massaging!

Hakone onsen hot springs