Reminds me of a funny commercial that was on tv a while back. Basically there were a few "cool" youngsters sitting outside bragging about their respective tattoos (which consisted mainly of chinese characters, kanji). They were all like -"mine says dragon" -"ooh"
-"mine says eternal wisdom and love" -"ooh"

Then the camera switched to the tattoo parlor where the "artist" sat with yet another youngster getting a kanji tattoo - what the guy didn't see was that this artist was sitting and copying it from some kind of chinese restaurant's menu ;)

LOL! That would be funny, to see someone with a tattoo that says "handmade buckwheat noodles" or "ginger beef with broccoli" :D

I really don't care if I had to go somewhere public and be naked ONLY if I didn't know anybody. There's a tiny chance that I'd meet these people ever again, so why should I care?

If I were to see somebody I knew... Images would be burnt in my mind and it'd be embarissing if I see them again.

Most onsen advertise the minerals and quality of the water and list what pool is good for which malady. They say they're great for skin, although I have pure skin women would kill for, so I haven't noticed a difference :D .

For you kanji people, there is a website devoted to bad kanji tatoos. If you google it i'm sure you'd find it. On my job one time i met a gangster with kanji tatoos of his girlfriends name, which was Nina. Her name was spelled with the kanji for dictionary.

Onsens (Hot Springs)
 

How many of you have been on Onsen (hot springs)?

I have and I absolutely love it! I can totally see why Japanese love it too :vsign: I went to two different ones and can't wait to go to another.

What are your guys thoughts about public baths like this? Do you feel weird about being with other naked people? :confused: I got over any weird feelings pretty quickly and enjoyed myself a lot, it's so relaxing!

My girlfriends father told me something funny, "there are two things Japanese love; Fuji-san and Onsen" :eek: I can see why!

I recomend Onsen to anyone who goes to Japan! (just watch out if you have tattoos)

I am definetly going to a hot springs when I go to Japan plus they are really relaxful. For some reason is not good to show tattos in certain places. My uncle went to Tokyo; he was at a restaurant but he was kick out because of his tattos. Well good advice for those who don't know that.:D Hot springs yay!

Well...technically I've been in onsen, as in "I was in hot springs many times and I loved it" but I never was in Japan and didn't experience the japanese hot springs. But I like our old middle and north european hot spirngs enough, thank you. .)
I still would like to go to Onsen...

sorry, i didn't mean to make it sound like a Japan specific thing :ywave: we have hotsprings here in california as well.

i thought since it's a forum about japan we could talk about japanese versions of hotsprings (onsen) and have a discussion about peoples thoughts of them. :)

the ban on tattos are because people often associate tattos with yakuza and yakuza's presence frighten some types of people. so most owners try to avoid this altogether by saying no to tattos.

That's why I added the 'I still want to go to Onsen' sentence ^^ I would love to experience it.