100 Places Every Woman Should Go - adventure, inspiration, celebration, empowerment, renewal

Sample Chapter 27: Russia—The Banya

The banya is a Slavic Eden: a steamy, womb-like place where you take off all your clothes and snack on caviar and smoked herring. Russian babushki, or grandmothers, swear that frequenting these steam baths can tack years onto your life.

Try landing an invitation to your Russian friends’ dacha, or countryside cottage. Many families build banya in their backyards, and they will likely join you inside, along with the requisite bottle of vodka (or two). That failing, visit a public banya. In Moscow, try Krasnopresnensky on Stolyarny Pereulok 7, near the Ulitsa 1905 Goda Metro, or the nineteenth century Sandunovskiye Bani on Neglinnaya Ulitsa 14. In St. Petersburg, there’s the Mitninskaya Banya at Ulitsa Mitninskaya 17/19 near the Metro Ploshad’ Vosstaniya, or Kazachie Bani on Bolshoy Kazachy Pereulok 11 near the Metro Pushkinskaya. Public baths are usually gender-segregated.

At the front desk, pay the fee and proceed to the changing room. Mischievous spirits called bannik are said to bewitch any clothing worn inside a banya, so strip all the way. Wrap up in a towel, slip on some flip-flops, and continue on to the showers for a rinse before entering the steam room, a wooden construction with a large furnace stove at one end. (Sometimes fragrances like pine oil, eucalyptus, or beer are added.) Spread your towel onto a wooden plank (the higher, the hotter) and observe the cultural phenomenon around you. Nothing wipes out class lines like nudity: Russian women of every income level will be perched upon those bleachers, massaging salt into each other’s pores, swapping beauty secrets, and gossiping.

At some point, an attendant will lug in buckets full of birch and juniper soaked in water. Grab a branch and, starting with your feet, slap it against the full expanse of your body. This ritual is said to “bring the blood to the surface.” Babushki will happily assist with any hard-to-reach places; just return the favor afterward. When the heat becomes unbearable, proceed to the pool room and jump in immediately. (Some are kept as frigid as 42 degrees; if you stick a toe in first, you might lose your nerve.) Get out before hypothermia kicks in and return to the steam room. Repeat as many times as you can: your skin will positively glow afterward. S lyogkim parom, may the steam be with you!


Sample Chapter 30: Japan—The Onsen and Sento

Worry not when the controlled chaos of Japan takes its toll. There are two marvelous antidotes, both of which entail stripping down to nothing and roasting in a tub: the onsen and the sento.

First, the onsen. Because Japan stretches across active volcano fault lines, many of its springs are naturally heated and rich in minerals. Japanese have enjoyed taking kamiyu, or divine baths, in these healing waters since ancient times, and families, friends, and colleagues still spend long weekends in the countryside together, sipping cold sake in steamy onsen. The significance of this activity cannot be overstated: the onsen is one of the few public spaces in which Japanese diverge from their carefully heeded social formalities. Here they can truly speak their mind—and do they!

Many onsen feature several baths, each offering a different temperature or mineral composition (and thus, different healing properties). Women and men generally soak separately, and those offering coed pools will almost always have a women-only option as well. Keep in mind that personal hygiene is sacrosanct. People watch foreigners closely, and will be extremely offended if you hop in the tub any less than squeaky clean. Even if you showered at home beforehand, carefully wash and thoroughly rinse off again. Soap is generally provided, but why stop there? This is a prime opportunity to pamper yourself: break out those pumice stones and fancy creams and lotions. Then take a deep breath, fling open the door, race out to the pool, and plunge in.

“As I lean back to enjoy the view of the sky through the bamboo leaves and watch my fingers pucker like raisins, I cannot help but observe my older fellow onsen denizens. I start thinking, ‘so that’s what I’m going to look like when I’m eighty,’” says Debby Katz, who spent two years soaking wet in Kyushu. “And because we’re all naked and sitting in the same tub of water, we start talking. ‘Where are you from?’ they all want to know. ‘Do you like onsen? Hot as hell in here, isn’t it?’”

A popular onsen is Dogo, a spa center in Matsuyama, Ehime-ken on Shikoku Island. The “Bath of the Spirits” includes hot tea, sweet bean-paste dumplings, and a coveted resting spot on the tatami mats on the veranda outside. Free ashi-yu, or footbaths, can be found at the nearby hot spring, Tsu Baki-no-yu Onsen. Another great option is the onsen at the base of Mount Fuji, a 12,390-foot volcanic cone located forty-four miles south of Tokyo. Go in May, when the azaleas are in bloom, and linger until sunset. These hot springs are said to cure everything from stress to rheumatism.

Then there’s the sento, or neighborhood communal bathhouse. They came into vogue in the Edo period of 1600-1868, when Japan began to urbanize, but have declined in recent years, as most apartments now have their own bathrooms. They can still be found in some residential neighborhoods, however. Sento tend to be utilitarian: a simple room with a tall barrier separating the sexes. The women’s entrance is usually red and says woman in kanji (, onna); the men’s, meanwhile, is blue (, otoko). Store your shoes in the locker and—as in the onsen—make a production of deliberately cleansing your entire body. Then hop in.

“The sento are a good way to get to know your neighbors, check in on each other, get the elderly out of the house, etc.,” says Marie Doezema, a Tokyo-based journalist. “I go to mine about once a week to hang out with the old ladies and boil myself silly. The last time I went, a total stranger offered to scrub my back for me because I couldn’t reach.”

Visit Marie’s sento, Rokuryu, at 3-4-20 Taito-ku in Ikenohata, Tokyo.



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