Subtitles section Play video
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(Music)
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We are here in Aizu-Wakamatsu at the Harataki Hotel and we're really excited because they are finally allowing
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people with tattoos into their onsen.
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So, if you're coming to Japan and you want to use an onsen, we're going to give you a little guide
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so you don't make a fool of yourself
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and you know exactly what to do. Come let me show you the ways of the onsen.
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M-Are we about to get naked on camera. S-Let's get naked girl. M-About to get naked on camera.
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But we're gonna be in separate rooms though. It's not co-ed. Separate rooms. Men and women.
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Scoundrel!
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All right, rule number one: make sure you know which one is for men
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and which one is for women. Usually women have a red curtain outside and men have blue.
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But if for some reason they don't have color coded curtains,
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which has happened to me before, you're gonna want to memorize this tiny tiny kanji to tell the difference.
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But, luckily here, it's pretty easy.
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(Music)
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All to myself. So whether you're staying in an onsen hotel, or you're just visiting an onsen,
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they will have little tiny lockers for you to put in your like wallet and your cell phone and stuff. You can lock it up
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and these keys are waterproof. But for the rest of your clothing,
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we're just going to use a basket. You're gonna wanna dump all your clothing into one of these baskets here.
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And then, you want to get naked. Sorry guys can't watch this part.
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(Music)
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Time to test your knowledge of the onsen.
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I'm gonna be throwing out some onsen facts to you guys. Some are true and some are terribly false.
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We'll see how many of them you guys actually can call out for me. Right over here we have a lovely little basket.
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It's filled with hair elastics. That is because it is extremely
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rude to get into the onsen bathtub area with your hair touching the water. Is that true or false?
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It's true. Do not let your hair drag in the water.
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That's for you to guys if you have long hair. Imagine the gigantic hair balls that will form over
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all the time of people. It would be like a monster rising from the ocean. Get your hair up.
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Onsen fact: true or false? You must wet your hair before getting into the onsen.
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This is actually an undecided one. Some people say you don't have to wash your hair
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but you must get it wet before getting into the onsen. Other people say it doesn't matter just as long as your hair doesn't actually
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touch the water. So I choose to not wash my hair today, but I will be pulling it up quite firmly
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and applying this super adorable headband to ensure that no hair touches the water.
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(Music)
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Most onsens will be providing you with two towels.
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There will be a big towel for you to dry off with, and then there'll be this little, teeny tiny towel.
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What is this tiny towel for? This teeny towel actually has two purposes.
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You can use it to scrub your body clean
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and then also you can use it as a manner towel. So a lot of people that get naked will take this towel and just
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kind of like cover up their lady or man bits when they're transferring between
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showering and bathing and back and forth again; so get your tiny manner towel ready.
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(Music)
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Now this over here is the onsen. It is not a bathtub for you to clean your body in. That is a massive faux pas.
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When you come here the first thing you should do this clean off. Get off the lotion, the deodorant
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that you're wearing before you go to soak in the actual onsen. You will be very highly judged
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if you just step right into that hot tub. So guys, let's go get scrubbed.
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(Music)
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Now, most onsens will provide you with shampoo and conditioner and body soap and maybe even face soap
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if they're fancy, but not all of them do. So if you're paying to get into just an onsen
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you might want to bring a little bit of toiletries with you.
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(Music)
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This is an important ritual known as kuma kuma
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Because there's been many people that have been visiting this onsen for like, years and years and years,
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you don't want to kind of anger or disrespect the spirits.
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So you scoop up a little bit of the water using this special bucket known as a karaoke.
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And then you pour it back into the water.
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That's total BS guys. I completely made that up.
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This is an important bucket for getting your body all warm and clean.
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(Music)
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Yes, I'm cheating I am wearing a bathing suit. But normally, I should be naked right now.
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Let's hit the open air bath.
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(Music)
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Let's talk about the real use of this bucket, shall we? You can use it for when you're actually washing
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but the real intention is to help you ease your way into hot springs. A lot of onsen are
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totally nuts hot like you put your feet in and you're like aaarghh!
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You scoop up some water, and starting at your feet
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you slowly warm up your body to get used to it. So let's get used to this frickin' scalding hot onsen.
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(Water rushing & moving over rocks)
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This is nice.
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Guys, if you have your little modesty towel with you, you can pop it on the top of your head, like this, to keep it out
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of the water. It's also quite nice if you dip it in cold water first.
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But whatever you do, don't wring it into the onsen
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It's considered very poor manners to do that. Just keep it up here
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Now I know a lot of you guys feel uncomfortable with the idea of public nudity
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But I gotta tell you if you come to Japan and you miss out on the chance to enjoy an onsen, guys
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It's such a nice way to unplug. You can't bring your phone with you
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You can't check Twitter, Instagram, YouTube. If you don't have another friend to come with,
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you just got to kind of sit, enjoy the scenery, relax, and unplug
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(background music)
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Why have I never seen a baby pigeon? Where are they?
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I'm not sure if I've ever used a semicolon correctly in my entire life.
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It's always been a guess.
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I just realized that I put a lot more effort into getting my cat to like me than I put effort into getting
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people to like me.
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Cats are so soft.
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(Music)
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Hmm. You know what? Your stomach thinks that all potatoes are mashed potatoes.
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Delicious.
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(Music)
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I wonder what Martina's doing? Probably not being informative whatsoever.
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She's such a slacker sometimes.
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(Music)
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In Japanese, there's actually a really nice phrase which means "naked friendship".
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And the concept is that everyone is the same when they're naked.
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Nobody wants to be naked. You can't tell if anybody's rich, or if anybody's poor.
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We're all exactly the same, so don't worry about people looking at you and checking out your scars, or if you're overweight,
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or if you have a weird tattoo. Nobody cares. Naked friendship. Come to Japan, enjoy an onsen, get naked.
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So, this was a super fun shoot because Martina did all the work
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and all I had to do was soak in a tub and look reflective and stuff like that.
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We also only had an hour, so Martina did all the grunt work
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and I I did the artsy shots, you could say, for, for the team.
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(Bark)
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(Music)
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It's like my dream. You guys have no idea how much I love milk. This might sound strange to you, but after an onsen
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it's actually kind of traditional to drink milk. Hence, the milk vending machine here. You got normal milk,
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you've got yogurt milk, and you've got coffee flavored milk. Supposedly this started because milk was cheaper than buying soda.
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Yeah, I don't know. All I know is that this is totally
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amazing. Glass milk bottle!
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Oh my god. It is so good. It is so full fat. This is like I feel like I'm drinking 4% milk.
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This is unbelievable. I never would have expected milk to be something I'd want after being in like hot
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soaking situation, but wow.
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Icy cold milk.
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(music, milk drinking)
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Mmm. This is my dream
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(music)
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So we are ending our night here with an incredible experience. You guys should see where we are right now.
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Yep. We're sitting at a table
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on a river with a waterfall, and there's literally a tree like growing out of the side of the table. Right there.
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That's the waterfall. If I wanted to I could jump into it, from here. Yep. Into the waterfall.
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Hopefully you guys can hear us over the sound of the amazing roaring water.
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Well this style of dining has actually got a name it's called kawadoko, and it means literally eating at a table by a river.
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I kind of think of it like how if you say to somebody I'm going on a picnic (exactly)
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it implies that you're gonna be like outdoors on the grass. If you tell someone you're gonna be eating
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like, kawadoko, it means you're gonna be eating at this like, amazing
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riverside magic.
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This is an absolutely fantastic way to end your onsen experience. I'm so excited for this, gonna happen.
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Can I just say, this right here is my retirement dream.
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I really want to live by a running body of water. If I could listen to water like this, I will sleep like the dead.
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And I'll have to pee all the time. It's, this, this is my dream right here. This is really special.
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I feel like I'm 60 years old and happy. This is. What do you mean? You feel like you're sixty years old
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and happy. Well because a lot of like old people are like...okay.
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You know what?
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Let's just drink some beer before you dig yourself a pit. Oh look at this frozen glass.
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Oh my god.
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This is so cold and wonderful. Oh my gosh. I can barely hold this girl.
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Kampai.
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Oh my god.
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Let's start off our night right.
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(Music)
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So, that's it for this week's wonderful adventure.
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This is our second time at Harataki Onsen. I love it here.
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Mmhm.
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I didn't even know that they had this available this time around
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Eating by the waterfall, having great food, a wonderful onsen. This is really special to me guys. Good feels
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right? I just, I feel great. You burnt the *baah* out of that girl.I didn't. I trusted you.
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Word doesn't fill me, we got to get to eating. If you want information on how to get to the hotel, click on our blog post.
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And we'll know all about how to get over here, and when this is in season and all that jazz
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Kampai, everyone. Okay. Goodbye. Kampai.
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(Music)