Japanese Onsen (Hot Springs)

So today I returned from my two day trip with my dormitory. We went to an onsen resort in Komatsu.

England doesn't have onsen, so as somebody who has never been to an onsen before, I was quite worried. Onsen are hot, public, baths heated by natural hot springs. The biggest thing that was worrying me was the obvious 'getting naked in front of your friends thing'. My other worries included cultural blunders and people staring at me because I'm a gaijin.

The first time we entered the onsen, I went with two Japanese girls, and two other girls from abroad - one from Germany and the other from Finland. My Finnish friend is used to saunas and being naked in front of her girly friends, which is wonderful. Kathy and I, on the other hand, were really quite nervous.

As we went into the women's changing rooms, we took off our slippers like you do as you enter a house in Japan, and proceeded into the actual 'changing' part, where a few mostly naked, slightly older Japanese ladies were getting dressed. That set the scene quite a bit. You first choose a basket to put your clothes in, and then you undress. I was really nervous about this. You are given two towels to use - the bigger one stays in your basket, and you take the smaller one in with you. Once I was naked, I did the whole 'covering your front with the smaller towel' thing, which was just fine. (I didn't bother doing it the second time I went into the onsen, because by then I didn't care). You should also tie your hair up if you have long hair and are going into the onsen.

When I went into the onsen room, there were a row of stools and showerheads, along with bodywash, shampoo and conditioner, to clean yourself with before getting into the onsen. First you rinse the stool off with the shower, and then you sit and wash yourself. Once that is done, you get in the onsen. Once you leave the onsen, you can rinse yourself or wash yourself off again. That's about all there is to it.

At first, I was really nervous about being naked around the people I knew, but I knew that my Japanese friends were kind of used to it as it is a part of their culture - even though for Minori it was her first time going into an onsen. The room was so steamy, though, it was almost as if you had left reality for a bit, and since everyone in this strange, wonderful world was naked, it didn't really matter that you were too. The water was so wonderful and warm.

There were two large baths, a cooler one, and a warmer one. The cooler one was still very warm. There was also a very small bath full of very cold water, in case you needed to cool down, and a Sauna.

The onsen was an amazing experience, and I would definitely recommend it to everyone. It felt amazing to bond with my female friends and have a girly chat, whilst relaxing - the water felt amazing. It also made me feel a lot happier about myself, and kind of made me appreciate all of the different kinds of bodies of my lady friends. I think that if every culture had onsen, there would probably be a lot less people with body issues.

節分- Setsubun - The end of Winter and the beginning of Spring!

I have a new video for you! Its about Setsubun- which is the changing of the seasons. This time it's from Winter into Spring. Hooray.

Because I am not all that very knowledgeable, you can find a wonderful link to Setsubun's Wikipedia page here.

Thanks for watching. ^.^

Japanese Christmas!

I wrote this blog a little while ago, and I only 'finished' it now. Really, I just had a couple of lines to write, and a few pictures to add, but somewhere along the way I got lost in the swamp of deadlines and exams and a whole month has passed since Christmas/New Years. Sorry!

As a British girl who has spent every Christmas of her life surrounded by her family, opening presents from under the tree, and eating a roast dinner, I don't think I'm over emphasising when I say that Christmas is the biggest event of the year, and the year seems to rotate around whether it is Christmastime or not. I would put Christmas above my birthday, above New Year's Day, Valentines Day, Guy Fawkes, Halloween and any other yearly holiday celebration that passes. For somebody who is used to having Christmas mean so much, it was quite a shock to see the differences between Japanese Christmas and English Christmas.

The Meaning of Christmas.
So I'm going to start off with the big one here. Obviously, England is a Christian country, and Japan is not, and this is probably the biggest reason for such a difference in Christmas tradition. I'm personally not a Christian, though, and for me, Christmas is about being with your family, about giving your friends and family gifts to show them your love and appreciation. It is also about amazing food. Because you can't beat a Christmas roast dinner! Japanese Christmas is a little different. A lot different. I've been telling people that Christmas here is a lot like Valentine's Day at home. Whilst, as a child in Japan, you would still receive a present from Santa, and all that Jazz, as a teenager or adult in Japan, the experience is completely different. First of all, Christmas in Japan is a time for couples, rather than families. Lovers exchange gifts, and it seems that you don't often buy presents for your friends and families. A lot of people go out on dates on Christmas Day with their boyfriend, girlfriend, or somebody who has worked up the courage to ask you on a date. Personally I think giving your Christmas Day up to be with someone means a lot, so if you're going on a date with someone on Christmas, then they probably mean a lot to you, but I don't know the Japanese frame of mind on this. I have at least 3 friends that went out on dates Christmas Day, one between two Japanese people, and two between Japanese guys and western girls. I already planned to spend my Christmas with my 'Kokusai House Family', and have a family meal with the people I lived with. Going on a date would not have seemed like Christmas at all to me, so I'm not sure if I would have accepted if I were asked. Good thing I wasn't. My boyfriend did come over and spend Christmas with my kokusai house family though, because I didn't want to stick him on his own because I wanted to spend time with a family that weren't even related to me!

Christmas Decorations
Whilst there are christmas decorations on sale, and up in the shops, it seems like the only people that made an effort to decorate were Tarnie, Saara and I. Tarnie and I are from England, of course, and Saara is Finnish. Tarnie and decorated the entire third floor kitchen a few weeks back. We also decorated the lift and our own bedroom. Tinsel and baubles were everywhere. There was a distinct lack of Christmas Tree, but it seemed like we were the only ones that really cared about that. We would have bought one, but Christmas Trees are actually really expensive in Japan, and we are all really poor students (especially since it's been such a long time since our last Student Finance chunk came through!). It was my first Christmas without a Christmas Tree, but since there would have only been our presents to go under it, it may have been a bit odd anyway. Tomoike house had tiny Christmas Trees up when we went to their party a few weeks before, though.

Christmas Presents
As I've already mentioned, Japanese Christmas is mainly between couples. Although Bunzo told me that when he was little, he used to receive a present from Santa, it seems that as you get older, gifts are reserved for lovers. Of course, we broke all manner of Japanese tradition, as usual, and went shopping for all of our friends. I was already very short on money, so I bought gifts for my nearest and dearest friends, and made friendship bracelets for the other people that I wanted to give something to on Christmas. I bought gifts for my gaijin friends - Saara, Kathy, Santana, Silvia and Abi, but also my closest Japanese friends Bunzo and Taihei. We really weren't expecting to receive gifts from them back, but being the adorable human beings they were, they gave us gifts too. I also received a really cute necklace from my friend Hanui, which made me really happy. When we woke up in the morning, Abi, Santana, Saara and I decided that whoever woke up first and wanted to open their presents would go and find the others (just like our families do at home), so we could open all of our gifts together. Santana and I also did stockings for each other, which we had decided to do about a month ago. I woke up at half eight, and so we were all downstairs before 9am, opening our presents from each other. It was great, just like a real Christmas!

Christmas Food
The Japanese idea of Christmas food is a little strange. Traditional Japanese Christmas meal is fried chicken, in fact, it is normal to reserve a place at KFC to eat at Christmas. Strange, When Yuko asked me what I was doing this Christmas, I told her Santana and I would be eating English Christmas food. She said "fried chicken?". No, Yuko, not fried chicken at all! Secondly, the Japanese eat cake on Christmas. That's kind of normal. We have cake. We have Christmas pudding, Tunis cake, Cheesecake and an array of all kinds of desserts. Japanese Christmas cake looks suspiciously like a Birthday cake though, so I've taken to calling it Jesus Birthday Cake. Because it looks like something you would give somebody for their birthday, not something that you would share for Christmas, after your roast dinner fried chicken. However, just like every other Japanese Christmas Tradition, we decided that we weren't going to do that at all. Santana and I made an amazing English roast dinner, with roast potato, mashed potato, carrots, broccoli, green beans, sweetcorn, roast chicken, Pigs in blankets, cauliflower cheese, yorkshire puddings, and gravy. Now, whilst this may seem like no giant feat to those living in England, it definitely wasn't the easiest thing to produce in Japan. First of all, our ovens are crazy dual microwave/ovens, so it was a bit weird preparing our roast in them. Secondly, there is no such thing as gravy in Japan. Shock, horror, yes I know. In fact, there is no such thing as a roast dinner, we just created one the best we could. Luckily, though I was prepared to try and make gravy from scratch, Mum sent us gravy granules in the post, so we could make gravy for our Christmas dinner.

My Christmas Care Package from Mum, card from dad, and gift from Hannah.

I didn't buy a whole chicken (I couldn't even seem to find Turkey meat), so we bought two large breasts to feed three people. Yorkshire Puddings were also difficult. We tried making them from scratch, but they didn't look, or taste very much like Yorkshire puddings at all. We think it's because the flour here is different, and weird. I was a little worried about the pigs in blankets too, because I used crazy Japanese 'wieners', rather than actual chipolata sausages, but that turned out fine. I was really proud of my Cauliflower Cheese, because I've never made it before, and I bought these cute little dishes to bake them in from Daiso and they turned out SO CUTE and WONDERFUL! When we sat down to eat, we drank Coke and Grape Fanta, and we also had Christmas crackers that my Mum sent us. After pulling crackers and putting paper hats on our head, it felt so much like real Christmas that I finally got really excited. It was the first Christmas meal I'd ever made, and Santana and I aced it. I'm so proud of us!

On a final note, all of the shops are open on Christmas Day. It's business as usual, and it's rather strange. For New Years, on the other hand, the Japanese like to pretend it's Christmas, and they shut all their shops for a good few days, hang out with their family, eat noodles, and don't party.

P.S. It snowed on New Years Day (above). Awesome :3