OK so as some of you may know, I went to Tokyo (after a short stop on London for a wedding) for about 3 weeks for a little vacation. My two cousins were pretty intent on going to the onsen (hot springs) for which Japan are renowned for. So, we booked accomodation at a resort in Kusatsu, about 3 hours out of Tokyo. I thought it would be OK as the website was in English and I'd seen plenty of english reviews. How ignorant (arrogant?) of us to think it would be tourist-friendly.
When we got off the bus, nothing was in English and hardly anyone spoke it. When we finally got the resort (I'm surprised we made it that far), reception barely spoke a word of it. Finally, we make it to our room and, despite the town itself being absolutely stunning and breathtaking, realised we were well out of comfort zone. But, that is what holiday is about and we experienced something quite surreal and beautiful.
That night one of my cousins and I decided to check out the springs. We went into the mens section and discovered the little etiquette; You had to bath naked. Fair enough. So we strip down (neither of us are shy and I didn't really care), flop the towel over our shoulders and walk into the pool area with everything showing quite freely. Soon enough, we discovered that all of the 70-80 year old men in there (about 20 or so) were covering their private parts with towels. Boy oh boy did we get some nasty looks.