Today is Good Bath Day

I have the most interesting car: when I start it in the morning, it greets me with ohayo gozaimasu (good morning) and tells me the date, followed by an interesting bit of “what day is today?” trivia. For example, August 15 is Instant Ramen Day, May 9 is Ice Cream Day, and November 22nd is Happy Married Couples Day, designed to help promote happy married couples (and hopefully get that non-dog birth rate up a little). Today is ii furo no hi or “good bath day,” a day when people like me who love Japanese hot springs and open-air baths can feel good about getting very clean while bathing. While I do love going up to the mountains to experience a real volcanic hot springs whenever I can, I don’t really have to go far to take a nice hot onsen bath, as there are three large public bath/hot springs establishments within 5 km of J-List, and one under construction that should be opening soon. Every weekend when we’re trying to decide what we want to do, my kids know what my suggestion will be: heading to some hot springs to get really, really clean.