But the basket makers died out, and with them, another Japanese tradition. The bathing area itself is a spacious tiled room filled with steam. Etiquette demands patrons crouch on little, tiny stools to meticulously and energetically wash themselves outside the bath first before actually getting in for a soak. As in almost every bathhouse across Japan, a giant mural of Mt. Fuji dominates one wall. Journalist Bob Neff, a bathing enthusiast, has recently compiled a guide to bathing resorts.
Fathers often take baths with their children.
Japanese would never think of letting a day go by without getting in a bath. It's part of the culture. Soaping down, rinsing off and then sitting in fairly large tubs, sort of like a hot tub in the United States, and relaxing is an important part of life. Neff prefers the pleasures of bathing at country hot spring resorts, which dot every corner of this volcanic land. Neff first laid squeamish eyes on a hot spring when he was still a teenager back in the 1960's.