Japanese Onsen and Portable Spas
Posted by Doug in Entertainment at 11:21 am When you have your own spa at your disposal all the time, life becomes a little easier. There is a source for natural stress relief in your very own home, and you can look forward to coming back to it at the end of a long day. Parties and entertaining becomes a snap, and you can plan elaborate gatherings or watch as spontaneous festivities erupt in your own yard. Portable spas can be a welcome addition to any home, becoming a center of social activity, and a place of solace. The only limit here is your imagination, and even this will start to relax when you get to discover the new possibilities with your spa.
The benefits of the spa are well-known, and numerous. So numerous, in fact, that it seems as though every week new studies offer new evidence about the healthy side effects of spending time in warm, bubbling water. It probably doesn’t take much to convince most people why these are such a great thing, but it’s interesting to see how the human obsession with hot water extends across geographies and cultures. In Japan, the bathhouses connected to natural hot springs are called Onsen, and it seems as though they well-understood the health benefits for centuries.
In Japan, the spa is approached very ceremonially. There are specific rules for entering and for leaving, suggesting the importance attached to the hot water therapy. The contemporary Onsen are very different than the originals, but still have the same functions. In earlier times, there were instances when the bathers did not leave for a month at a time, and held stones on their laps to prevent their being carried away into the water while they were sleeping. Now it is much more of a communal event, with a very conscious focus on health. One of the important social aspects, however, which is true then as it is now, and also has a resonance with our own ideas of the spa, is the leveling effect. When everyone is in a swimsuit, everyone is really rather equal, and societal anxieties melt away to allow for the calm humanity to come to the surface.
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