京都銭湯What can you get for around 500 yen (about $5.30) these days?
4 cokes (220 ml/can, 480 yen)
4 cans of Kirin beer (220 ml/can, 480 yen)
Four packs of gum (480 yen)
A one-way trip to Osaka from Kyoto on JR (540 yen)
Postage enough for 4 letters to the US (50 mg or less/letter, 440 yen)
A trip to a public bath (410 yen)
The sento (public bath) is the least expensive of the above options, but you can keep the change. We don't drink coke, canned beer is for the hottest of summer days only, gum we can live without, and Osaka you can have. Except for Mom, letters are pretty old school (but so are we and confess to writing and buying 110 yen stamps often).
The public bath is old school as well, but ah what lurks behind those inviting curtains.
For less than $5, you can bathe and chat, wash and soak, rinse and scrub to your heart's delight. And then repeat.
A standard neighborhood sento will have several baths: cold, really hot, and herbal. Often there is a sauna as well.
The boiling hot bath gets you cleaner than you have been months. The changing room is good for neighborhood gossip, a massage on chairs for that purpose, or watching a ball game on the tv affixed to the ceiling.
However, the main goal - getting naked, and really clean, with a bunch of strangers - is itself worth the entrance fee.
Highly recommended.
Highly recommended.
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Japan
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Kyoto
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public bath
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