#bathinghouse

[megansaltz]

for my friends who don't have AC or have a poorly functioning window unit, I'm sending you some refreshing sento images from Tokyo based photographer Yutaka Matsubara. for those unfamiliar with sentos, these are small neighborhood bathing houses with extremely hot small pools and showers, usually inexpensive, a couple dollars, usually immaculate, separated by sex. traditionally they have a handpainted oceanscape or mount-fuji-scape painting above the pools. they go back to the 8th century, to India and China. some apartments in Tokyo are very small and don't have a shower/bath. in those cases, people go around the corner to the sento. today, a mundane public kind of space. (I think the typical ones are not as colorful as these ones Matsubara photographed.) (in the sento there are signs that forbid taking photos, Matsubara must have received special permission to take photos during off hours.) (plop, waterdrops from the ceiling.)