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Most
Tokyo public baths are scrambling to appeal to a new generation which
takes it for granted that even people living in a one-room apartment
have their own private, knees-up bath. Thus the recent proliferation
of electric baths, jacuzzi, hi-tech massage chairs, and high-definition
TV sets in the lobby.
Fuji no yu is on a different wavelength. The family who run Fuji no
yu think a bath should be an aesthetic experience. The lobby is dark
and cool, with an arrangement of flowers in a pottery vase and perhaps
some lingering incense. The only furniture is a well-worn wooden bench.
No TV. The tiles on the floor are hand-crafted. The lobby could be
a place for drinking tea.
In the changing room, there is no plastic, no chromium, no showers
even. A couple of pastoral oil paintings and and old tin Asahi Shimbun
sign that must have been there for fifty years hang on the white plaster
walls. The clock, fan, and scale are antiques, as is the hair blower,
which costs 20 yen to use. Paper lanterns dilute the fluorescent lighting.
The sauna (for men only: it used to be for women only but female customers
were few, so sides were switched) is of Scandinavian dimensions. It
and the cold bath and a tiled expanse where odalisques could lounge
occupy a separate room.
There's no electric bath and only a half-hearted massage bath. The
centerpiece is a classic bath of hinoki, Japanese cypress, which miraculously
softens the water; it is like bathing in silk. From high over the
bath, water drips plunk... plunk... plunk... into the bath - Fuji
no yu's only music. There are old-fashioned wooden washing stools
and buckets.
Fuji no yu is not particularly easy to find. You will probably have
to ask someone the way. They will point you with some pride to their
neighborhood bath. "Naka naka ii," they will probably tell you. "A
pretty nice place."
current review
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