Japan documentaries 2018 episode 8/15: In the hot spring water – free for everyone – News

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Crowdfunding for the 2022 Japan documentary is in full swing. To mark the occasion, we are gradually making the 15 episodes of the Japan documentaries 2018 freely available in 1080p. Episode 08: In the hot spring water.

Since 2018, the Japan documentaries 2018 were only available to crowdfunders and buyers. We are now releasing the 1080p versions free for everyone (however, the making of is subject to a fee). If you like them, join the crowdfunding for the Japan documentary 2022 – and get all 2022 episodes for the special price of €10 (only until the start of travel!).

If you want, you can also Buy 2018 documentaries in 4K, including numerous extras. The extra-long Making Of (Episode 16) and a number of extras are then also included.

Jörg has experience in bathtubs, saunas and wellness at home – and he has also been to one or the other onsen. The latter is simply a bathing facility (often part of a hotel or traditional ryokan inn) that draws water straight from the spring. That doesn’t mean that it isn’t processed (e.g. heated or cooled or added with additives), but only whose spring water meets certain conditions can be called an onsen.

In this episode of the Japan documentaries, Jörg visits four “hot water scenarios”, three of which he was able to film, one under relatively clandestine circumstances (see fun fact). This will give you a glimpse into an important part of everyday Japanese culture – and maybe make you want to go to an onsen yourself. Because, as Jörg will prove to you in the first 90 seconds of the episode, it’s really easy and done without much walking…

fun fact: Anyone who, after watching the video, is wondering what an “electric bath” is (no, there are no electric eels swimming around in it), but dismisses the idea that it could actually be electrified water, should first digest the following information: Although I have never experienced this myself, there are credible reports that there are even more unusual pool filling offers in a number of onsen or sentos.

Now even Austrian wellness hotels are not squeamish about cheating stressed Germans out of their money with the most unusual sauna and bathing offers possible, but apparently they can still skim off a big bucket from the Japanese bath operators. For example, basins are filled with tea instead of water, and wine is said to have been sighted (milk, however, not, Cleopatra has to go somewhere else on her next time machine trip). But that is nothing compared to the fact that there are radioactive onsen baths. The radioactivity is mostly from radon or other noble gases and is natural – but that doesn’t mean it’s healthy. Radon is considered carcinogenic and is separated from the water in which it is bound by heat and becomes gaseous again. Some Japanese, however, consider radon baths to be very healthy – either as a foot bath or body bath. However, the latter are at least offered in their own rooms, so that bathers who are less interested in radioactivity do not come into contact with the gas).

Do you think this is a hoax? Then, for example, may I quote from the English homepage of the Misasa Onsen Hotel: “The hot springs of Misasa contain one of the highest levels of radium in the world. Radon is a weak radioactive gas that is produced by the decay of radium. When we breathe it , radon improves the metabolism, increases the immune system and our natural healing powers.” So it all sounds very tempting. The website also advises drinking the mineral-rich spring water and mentions a study that found the area’s cancer death rate in 1992 to be half the national average. Already convinced? Not me…

Oh yes, the “electric bath” really is this: the water is energized, causing your muscles to contract, which the video calls a “massage.”