Articles of category "Hot springs"

The Japanese love bathing and they love not only common bathing in an indoor tub. Outdoor baths are perhaps even more popular and revitalizing. Hot springs, or onsen, hot water bubbling from underground are the results of numerous volcanoes in Japan, many of which are still alive. In 1990, there were about two thousand and three hundred hot springs in Japan and this number is increasing annually. Hot springs are twenty five degrees or hotter and full of sulphur, calcium, sodium and other minerals, the water of which is efficacious against a high blood pressure, rheumatism, diabetes and other illnesses. In fact, the medical effects of hot springs are known from the 8th century.

The Japanese bathing culture gives rise to many stories, legends and misconceptions. There is one that men and women bathe together, which is definitely wrong. The other stories, describing the Japanese bathing as an entirely different phenomenon than that of the Western culture, are quite right. The Japanese bathing has a more religious background and a clean body means a clear soul. Many Japanese devote at least half an hour daily to bathing and Japanese baths have many varieties, including hot spring baths, open air baths, steam baths, mud baths, 'baths', where you are buried in hot sand, and waterfall baths (a bath and a massage in one).