Minami-Chitose & Public Baths (Day 4)

Again, sorry for the delay in posting a new post. Had been trying to blog for the past few days but never seem to find the right time for me to be doing so. There's an exam coming up soon in June and I had to stick myself with the books most of the nights. It's very tiring to force to myself to read after a long tiring day being at work.

After visiting the Sapporo Beer Museum, we headed back to Sapporo City again and rode the train south bound to Minami-Chitose(南千歳駅), located in Chitose (千歳市). Now what's available there was the Chitose Rera Outlet Mall. After approximately around 30 to 35 minutes train ride from Sapporo City via the Rapid Airport train, we reached our destination. Located next to Shin-Chitose Airport (新千歳空港) and within walking distance from the JR Minami-Chitose train station, its a shopping paradise for those who are looking to buy items at a cheaper price.

Opens from 10am to 7pm (Japanese shopping is extremely weird that most shops closes around 7pm to 9pm), all year long whether its winter or summer, this outlet mall will be open. Now this place is rather huge, needless to say it holds a lot of shops. To me, Rera resembles the US Factory Outlets. We have to grab some lunch first as we made our way to Food Forest where the food court is located. I ordered Japanese Curry Rice again from Steak Mountain stall while dad has Korean at the Tong Dae Mun stall and mom had her Udon noodles at the Chitose Udonya Honpo.

After lunch, we began to stroll around the area, doing some shopping as we spend our time there combing through the shops. The items aren't that cheap but compared to Sapporo City, this is still at an acceptable range. I got myself 2 pairs of Adidas shoes which costs less than 8000Yen. Dad also got himself a pair of shoes at Timberland. I also got myself a few T-shirts from GAP as well as a few pieces for my dear. My little brother requests for a sunshade, dad bought it at the Oakley store which was opened recently.

By the time we are done shopping it was almost 4pm. Time to stop for a short break and we bought drinks and a little bit of snacks from the Lawson Convenient store.

We headed back to our hotel after that and as usual, I slept along my way back, just to keep myself fresh for the rest of the evening. Napping on the train is good because the train is warm and comfy despite the cold weather outside. Reaching back at the hotel around 5pm, we drop our purchases back to the room and then, we went to the...

Sheraton's Public Bath House, Spa Alpa located at B1.

Don't even think about taking pictures at the public bath house as at the entrance, no cameras allowed is already being mentioned strictly. What I managed is to take a picture of what is inside the bath house from the directory that was posted inside the elevators and also gathered some pictures from the hotels website. Registering ourselves to the place (costs around 2000Yen per person), dad also arranged massages for the 3 of us after the bath, which will take place an hour later.

I was unfamiliar with the whole ordeal, so dad guided me step by step once we are inside. Men and women have separate baths. Men to the right, women to the left, these two doors are separated at the reception. Place your shoes into a box outside, and headback to the reception to let them store your key and then they will give you another. This key will be your clothes locker key. Once you head inside, it's like what you will normally see on TV of a locker room. We were presented with a small piece of towel, small enough to made it as a handkerchief. At the back of my head, I kept telling myself "nothing to be shy, nothing to be shy". I stripped myself bare and placed all my clothes inside the locker. The key can be strapped onto the wrist, so no fear of losing it. Don't even think of shaking your weenie or bon bon's inside as it will definitely look weird to everyone and you'll be branded as a "monkey" at the back of their mind. It's a great disrespect to the others and even yourself.

Once inside, dad advised me not to jump into the tempting looking hot pools. Wash up first. Custom dictates that before entering a public bath, one much approach a level of cleanliness. You'll definitely find numerous stations outfitted with small stools, showers, toothbrushes, shavers and various soaps and shampoos nearby the pools. So off I go, scrubbing every last inch of myself, even my teeth! I guess I have never been this so clean my entire life, it took around 20 minutes to scrub myself down to the end. The hair shampoo smells extremely nice and so does the body shampoo. If I am not mistaken, it's made by Shiseido and costs around 2000Yen a bottle (it was sold outside at the reception).

After all the scrubbing and all washed up, time to head onto the first hot pool, the jacuzzi hot pool. The first word that came out of my mouth was "OH MY GOD!! This is HOT!! I'll cook myself in this". After a while, I just realize it wasn't that hot, until you dip yourself into the non jacuzzi hot pool. It's scalding, probably around 40c hot water. Then I tried the sauna, the dry one (opening the door gave me a heat sting to my eyes. Imagine how hot it was!) and the wet one (misty but these mist is hot mist). Back to the hot pool after that before finishing myself off into the ice cool pool. Trust me, its way worse than dipping into winter rivers. I had to get myself into the hot jacuzzi pool one more time before relieving myself from the pool of tortures.

I wonder how these Japanese people can take all this every day (those who are rich enough to visit the bath house everyday), it's just so hot in there! After drying myself off, I robed myself up and the caretaker even passes me a pants before I am cleared to go out to the meeting hall for my massage later (the caretaker happens to be a lady and yes... these ladies are professionals, I guess they have seen so many dicks already, probably they have lost count). I moved myself to the massage room where an old lady (probably around mid 50's) were waiting for me and calling me "Jason-chan?" and I nodded. I was not stripped naked for massage, just remove my robe and the nice lady placed a towel on my back after lying down on my stomach. The massage are not all about the strength, it's about how it soothes your muscles; not torturing it. The massage definitely put me to sleep only to be waken up once she start massaging the bottom of my feet. After the massage, I head back to the meeting room to meet up with my mom, who happens to have finished earlier than I did. I guess everyone was happy having such a relaxing baths.

Visiting the public bath is a real eye opener for me. People will surely asks me a lot of weird questions if I were to tell them I did the Japanese Public Bath ritual, so I kept it silent from most of the people. After reading over so many articles, I am still confused whether the place that I have been to is an Onsen (温泉) or a Sentō (銭湯), I really don't know. I'll let you all decide.