Alternative to public hot water bath in Japan for a tattooed person
I'm going to Japan in a of couple months.
I've got 80% of my back tattooed and I would really like to try the experience of a public bath in Japan.
Many people have been telling me that it is not allowed for people who have tattoos.
My question is. What would be an alternative for a public bath for me?
Is there a private bath, a place where I can pay for the same experience e don't be banned?
Best Answer
Many hotels and ryokan have a family bath, that is, a bathing facility that can be reserved for private use by families or other groups. This can range from a simple bathroom with a large tub available for free to guests of the hotel up to an luxurious outdoor onsen at $50 per hour.
Of course, you would be alone there unless you bring along friends. I can't tell from your question, but if by "experience of a public bath in Japan" you mean that you want to mingle with regular Japanese guests, you're probably out of luck; the ban on tattoos is not specific to publically owned facilities; private operators are just as (if not even more) likely to have it.
There are baths that are run by or are friendly to the yakuza and also open to the public; those will allow you to enter with tattoos.
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Can you go to a Japanese bathhouse if you have tattoos?
When using pools and public baths, typified by onsen, presence of a tattoo becomes a big failure. On many guidebooks for Japan trip, it is written that you cannot enter onsen if you have tattoo. In fact, many of bathing facilities, including onsen ryokan, refuse bathing of customers with tattoo.Can people with tattoos go to hot springs in Japan?
People with tattoos are banned from most onsen (hot springs), sento (public baths), ryokan (traditional inns), pools, gyms and even capsule hotels.How do you hide tattoos on an onsen?
If your tattoo is small Is your tattoo small enough to be covered by a plaster? Then just cover it up, and you're fine. Many onsens even offer them to guests. It may not even be necessary to cover them up, but if you want to be sure, plasters seem to be a surefire way to get around any tattoo rules.Japanese Yakuza Sauna room part 2
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Answer 2
There are a variety of grades of public bath in Japan, reflected in the facilities and the pricing.
- onsen are resort-class baths.
- tennen onsen ("natural onsen") are anything but natural; they're man made onsen constructed by boring down into the ground until you hit geothermally heated water, which is then treated with chemicals to resemble the mineral composition of onsen water.
- super sento is just plain water, but with a variety of baths, usually a sauna, etc.
- sento is the cheap neighbourhood bathhouse. It may only have two or three baths, and you take your own soap and shampoo.
Super sentos and up normally prohibit tattoos. Every sento I have been in has had at least one person with tattoos, and sometimes the saunas are obviously being used for business meetings by people with punch perms who describe their jobs as "a little bit of this and that." Those places are more interesting anyway.
Answer 3
Now I don't speak any Japanese but this Japan site with tips on Onsen bathing (in German) includes a link to a site with a directory of tattoo-friendly spas/baths/onsen. Since it is in Japanese only and I know next to nothing about that I can't judge for its content, but it does seem very legit.
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Images: KITSUN YUEN, Ashley K Bowen, Michael Burrows, Ivan Samkov