steph's blog

Today’s adventure was Spa World, a multi-storey bath complex. Photos aren’t allowed, for obvious reasons, so you’ll have to put up with my rambling instead.

We met around 10am at Yodoyabashi, then took the subway to Doubutsuen-mae which is near Spa World. It was the creepiest station I’ve been to yet – looked old and deserted. There were signs saying we were at the ‘Festival Gate’, but it certainly didn’t feel very festive. The Spa World building was quite impressive though. It’s 8 storeys tall, and the entrance was really spacious with a high ceiling.

We hadn’t known that there was some kind of promotion on, so rather than 3000yen we only had to pay 1000 to get in. We bought a ticket from a machine, then recieved a wristband at the desk on our way in. The wristband works as a payment system for everything inside the building, so you don’t have to carry cash around for drinks and things. Just pay all the charges when you leave.

We had to first remove our shoes and leave them in lockers on the entrance floor, before taking the lift up to the 4th floor. Spa World has two main sections: the 4th floor is the European themed baths, and the 6th floor is Asian themes. Each month the floor that is exclusive for women or men alternates – for November the women’s floor was the European one. We’ll have to go back next month to see the other one.

On the 4th floor we put all of our things into lockers – and I mean all. From here on out all we were wearing was our payment wristbands and the locker key wristband. We picked up little towels to take to the baths with us (everything is provided here, no need to bring towels), but they weren’t really big enough to hide anything. At first I felt rather awkward, but I got used to it quickly since everyone else was naked as well.

Ancient Rome: This was the first bath we encountered. Nothing very unusual, though it was my first taste of how hot the water is here. When we moved on from here I had a clear line showing how deep I’d sat in it, as I’d turned so red.

Atlantis: A clear floor in the bath with fish swimming underneath, and a fish tank beside the bath too.

Greece: In the middle of the room was a salt-water bath, and on either side was a herbal bath. It had lavender, rosemary… there were 5 herbs, but I can’t remember the others. It felt like taking a bath in a cup of herbal tea, but I liked it.

Finland: Sauna. Luckily we had Laura to instruct us in proper sauna-ing proceedure :) There was a cold water pool outside, which we got in first (and that was a horrible shock, after all the super-hot pools before) before going into the sauna. First we went in the low-temperature one, then came out and got in the cold water again. Then the hotter sauna, water again, sauna again, water again. Switching between the two extremes was actually nice, because the heat would make the cold not feel so bad, and vice versa.

Spain: We didn’t want to get into a hot pool right after the cold water at the sauna, so we used the Spanish footbath. It was set up like a restaurant but while sitting at the tables our feet were in water with stones (for exfoliation? it said what they were for, but in Japanese). There actually was a cafe there, but it wasn’t open while we were sitting, and also it would have felt just too strange to order drinks while naked! Once we’d lost the chill from the cold water, we went into the main Spanish pool, which had a kind of hot-water waterfall that felt really nice on my shoulders.

Mediterranean: Had loungers in the water, so we could lay back and enjoy it. I could have fallen asleep there XD

There were some other things as well: a bath shaped like a cave, with ‘milk and honey’ water; a salt-sauna where we rubbed ourselves with salt then were meant to sit but couldn’t relax because the floor was so hot that we couldn’t put our feet down.

At this point we’d tried all the baths, so we decided to go down to the 3rd floor, which had the salons and restaurants. Clothes are provided that we could wear rather than changing back into our own clothes, since the floors other than 4th and 6th are mixed-gender. The pink nightie-looking thing wasn’t the most attractive thing I’ve ever worn, and it also seemed rather unfair that the guys get pants while we didn’t!

The things on this floor cost extra, so we didn’t do much. First we let fish eat our feet. It felt incredibly strange to have these tiny fish swarming over my feet and nibbling them, but afterwards they felt the nicest they have in years. All the rough skin has been eaten away :D

After that we had a back/shoulder massage. I don’t normally do that kind of thing, but whatever, while I’m there I may as well, right? It was really nice, though hurt a bit with how hard she was going at it. I’m sure it was good for me though. And as a side bonus, they gave us pants to wear while we were there (we had a type of massage where we kept our clothes on) and we didn’t have to give them back when we left. So we didn’t have to eat lunch pantsless :)

Lunch was delicious spaghetti followed by a delicious Chocolate Brownie Parfait, omg yum.

After lunch we couldn’t think about doing anything right away, so we went back to the 4th floor and went to the TV room, where we lay in recliners for a while. I ended up watching golf since that was the TV nearest to me in the row of them across the front of the room, and since I didn’t have my glasses on I couldn’t see the further away ones very well.

Once we’d digested a bit, we went back into the baths. We just went back to a few of them – Greece, Finland – and also discovered a steam sauna that we hadn’t gone into last time, though it turned out to smell like fish so we didn’t spend too long in there.

After we were done, we got cleaned up to leave. All toiletries are provided – shampoo, body wash, face wash – and then also moisturiser, hair brushes, dryers, products. It’s really very nice that customers don’t have to bring anything.

On the way out we had to pay the charges for our lunch and massage, then pick up our shoes and leave. It had started to rain at some point, so the journey home was a bit miserable. But still, a really nice and relaxing way to spend a day. I’d recommend it to anyone who can get over the whole ‘naked’ part :D