So… the crowd of people standing near that building down the street, last week, with lots of people in all sort of suits and uniforms and a large blue tarp across the entrance… wasn’t a fire, as I thought it was at the time…
It was… MURDER!
The things you learn, chatting with your elderly neighbours, stark-naked and soaking in boiling hot water…
Lucky you, I haven’t been to the sentô for ages…
I consider going to the one in Futako-Tamagawa around new year’s Eve, as I plan to go to Tôkyô then (Kyoto might be a little too expensive for me)
P!
What’s wrong with your local sento?
1/ I don’t know where it is
2/ The one at Futako has 3 outside pools. So great in winter ! (Though I must have onsens here. I need to find a couple of mates with whom I could go there.)
P!
Mmn… I think you are confusing plain simple sentô with fancier onsen and rottenburo (not mutually exclusive, but considerably less common)… When I say sentô, I mean the usual deal where you go soak up after a long day at work to relax and discuss the weather with the locals. Despite a certain decline in recent decades, they are still everywhere. I doubt you live more than 500m from one. Sentôs are pretty much all identical inside, so it is rather pointless going across country to go to one 😉
As for finding them:
1) Open google map
2) type your address
3) ‘search nearby’ for 銭湯
There you go! (there’s already 4 within walking distance of Sendai train station, but I don’t know where you live).
Well, I have some luxurious tastes you know ^^
But sure, I wasn’t thinking of the casual sentô. I’ve been to one of those just once, ages ago, in Ôsaka…
The thing is, those next to where I live may be… well… I don’t know what those of Kabukichô look like, but chances are the same kind population goes there…
P!