Months before I ever set foot in the Azabu Juban Onsen, I would regularly walk past the unprepossessing five-story building on my way to or from Roppongi Hills. Nothing in the outward appearance of the building – a rectangular box of dingy concrete and dust-encrusted windows – gave any indication of the purportedly restorative qualities of the waters within. Nor did the building even remotely conjure up the traditional images of Japanese mineral baths, generally depicted as inviting pools of steaming water surrounded by artfully hewn rocks in a bucolic setting. This building, on the other hand, could easily have stood in for a Soviet-era recreational hall or municipal dormitory on the outskirts of Moscow, for a Japanese film director who needed such a setting but couldn’t afford the airfare.
In fact, only one feature of the building from the outside gave any indication of what was happening inside, and this was the glowing inferno that was visible from the street when one of the side doors into the furnace room was left open. Within, you could sometimes see the black silhouette of a figure tossing wood into the roaring flames, like some machinist in the engine room of a steamboat, stoking the furnace that heated the onsen waters. Right behind the building, in a full-size lot that would by most measures be considered one of the most valuable pieces of real estate in Tokyo, a chaotic jumble of lumber and scraps of wood waited to become fuel for the ravenous furnace that kept the customers of the onsen stewing, at just the right temperature, for ten hours every day.
Since I was accustomed to thinking of the traditional Japanese bath as offering waters naturally heated by flowing magma far beneath the earth’s crust, this aspect of the Azabu Juban Onsen’s operation was initially disappointing, as it seemed to suggest some artifice out of keeping with the time-honored and ecologically sound principles that should govern a Japanese spa. Nonetheless, the antique furnace did seem very much true to the generally ramshackle and dilapidated nature of this particular establishment that, as I was to discover, was undergoing something akin to death throes during the first two years of my residence in the Azabu High Street. Invisible to the outside world, the real estate “vultures” had been slowly circling in the skies above this prime double lot on the corner of one of the busiest intersections of the shoten gai.
Although my frame of reference was limited, customer attendance at the onsen did seem to mirror its sorry outward appearance. From what I could see of the rare customers making their way into the building on a weekend afternoon, often dressed in traditional garb, towels draped over their arms, and clopping down the sidewalk in their wooden geta sandals, the onsen was serving a decidedly aging population base. Local folklore (subsequently substantiated by several “knowledgeable sources”) also held that the Azabu Juban Onsen was known as a favorite hangout for yakuza, whose colorful tattoos made them persona non grata at most other public baths. However, although I kept my eye out for them every time I passed by, never did I see the black sedans or huddled groups of men in dark suits outside the spa that would indicate the presence of bathing mob bosses within.
After letting my curiosity percolate for longer than I ever should have, I finally one day took the leap and decided to experience the Azabu Juban Onsen “in the flesh.” The day I chose was a wintry Sunday afternoon in early February, which also happened to be the day the Japanese celebrate the religious festival of Setsubun. It seemed somehow appropriate to choose this event, which marks the transition from winter to spring, from barrenness to fertility, for my own ritual purification in the reputedly health-giving waters of the onsen.
In the pages of his journal, Townsend Harris had appeared to take a somewhat more cautiously benign, if Victorian view of the traditional practice of public bathing. While still based in his remote outpost of Shimoda, Harris reported approvingly that the Japanese were very “cleanly” and bathed daily, before going on to write,
The wealthy people have their baths in their own houses, but the working classes all, of both sexes, old and young, enter the same bathroom, and there perform their ablutions in a state of perfect nudity. I cannot account for so indelicate a proceeding on the part of a people so generally correct. I am assured, however, that it is not considered as dangerous to the chastity of their females; on the contrary, they urge that this very exposure lessens the desire that owes much of its power to mystery and difficulty.
Given the lack of any interior plumbing at the temple where he was housed, it is presumed that Harris must have continued his visits to the bathhouse during the rest of his stay in Shimoda. The titillating practice of mixed gender bathing there may have contributed to the legend that arose around the supposed affair that Harris had with a 17-year-old geisha he’d reportedly seen leaving the bath house.
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