Our bathing ritual in Japan

When I was a child, our family took a bath every night. In America, many people take a shower in the morning. Well, it is certainly refreshing. But in Thailand, I do remember that my relatives were taking a shower before going to bed and another one in the morning. They smelled pretty good.

I have to admit that I rarely take a long relaxing bath anymore in California. We do have a bathtub and I can kind of stretch my legs and relax..but even then, it isn’t the same as the bath tub we had in my home in Japan. The tub is shallow and to me, that is not very relaxing.

So I just take a shower instead of taking a long bath nowadays.

People ask why Japanese people take a bath at night..and some of my friends take a really long one. I had a friend from Japan who would read her favorite book in a bath tub and would easily spends over one hour! But the main reason Japanese people take a bath at the end of the day is to cleanse your body and relax so you can let go of work related stress, schedule, deadlines..whatever that is on your mind.

Standard Japanese Bath Tub. Deep and small

My American friend visited my house in Japan and she thought my bathroom was so cool because it had an entrance room where you can take off your clothes and then you open another door to go to the next small room which is equipped with a shower and a deep but *small* bath tub. What surprised her the most was the fact that we had a separate tiny room just for toilet!

Japanese people often use bath salt to add some minerals to the water so the ingredients can sooth our skin and it makes the regular bathing fexperience a very refreshing one.. So my mother often used that. But if you are Westerners, you have to be careful here.

This is the same for public bath and onsen, but you are supposed to cleanse your body before going into the bath tub. In public bath, everybody is taking a bath in a large bath tub so you do have to clean your body out of respect and it goes the same way at home. In order to minimize the water waste, Japanese family tends to share the same water for bath..My parents and they have four girls so that was kind of gross so I made sure to take a bath before they go LOL

I love enjoying the huge bath tab on my own but I would feel too awkward to take a bath naked in front of people..

Even though I live in a desert weather in California, I would like to take a bath at least once a week just to let go of all worries, deadlines, issues, annoying people…and just focus on cleansing my soul, breathing and being mindful. I feel this is such a great habit for our soul. Do you agree?

Tell me about your bath ritual if you have any? If your culture has a specific bath ritual, please share. Look forward to your feedback. Spammers would be blocked so please do not waste your time.

This is definitely not an average American bath tub. It is an upgrade from my bath tub.