Now I have to explain that this decision was not quite that easy. You see, all the attendant staff at the bathhouse are women and they are constantly moving about the general area. Wearing my birthday suit in front of them was not so easy. However, I learned a valuable cultural lesson. While the Japanese certainly have their own forms of modesty, nudity at the bathhouse is not one of them. In the bathhouse they seem completely indifferent to clothes or lack of them. Bathing involves undressing as a normal practice, so why be concerned about it?

I soaked in the tub for about a half hour. After a while I began to wonder what the next step was. After all I had also paid for a Japanese massage (shiatsu). Well, I must have had that stupid look on my face again because a woman came up and signaled me out of the tub. I followed her and she ordered me onto a table and partially covered me with a towel. Before I could figure out what was happening, she took a rough brush and scrubbed me from head to toe everywhere (well almost everywhere). After she was done she ordered me to the communal sink to wash again. I think there is such a thing as too clean.

By now I was used to the procedure. I stood around looking lost again, so one of the women gave me a robe and took me to the massage room. This is the very best part of the bathhouse. The attendant pulls and squeezes every muscle and stretches and twists every joint for 45 minutes. The massage even includes your scalp and a walk on your back. When she is done you can hardly move because the massage is intoxicating and mesmerizing. But you have to get up. I wandered back to the locker room.

I was feeling comfortable enough and sufficiently relaxed to be curious and observant. I realized that this onsen was more than a bathhouse. It was a kind of way station for Japanese businessmen who spend large percentages of their time commuting. Located at the convergence of all the major commuting resources in Tokyo, the onsen provides a frazzled Japanese man with a place to relax. Not only was there the bath and massage, but there was a dormitory, restaurant, TV room - it was kind of like home away from home - all in the basement of the Tokyo Station!

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