Ever since those Friday afternoon sessions of Duck Duck Goose in the second grade, I have always loved a wild goose chase. As I have grown older and possibly wiser, I have become an even bigger fan of the ‘it’s not the destination, it’s the journey’ kind of escapades, if only because I have both a love of and natural talent for getting lost. Still, I know it’s important to have your eyes well and truly on the prize. Which brings us to the elusive prize of Hagoromoyu, which somehow still retains the title of the closest sento that I know of to Shinjuku Station.
Let me give you a little bit of history: some time ago, whilst I was having a very staggered conversation with a very friendly man in a very bitchin sento near Yoyogi-Uehara (Daikokuyu, thank you I.K) I was informed of a sento that had a salt sauna and water that was “like black oil”. This was about March 2014, at a time when I knew not of either of this things. Not only that, but this place was recommended after I had asked for the best sento that was close to Shinjuku station. So, I made a good point of noting down its name and setting Google Sensei to work. Some time later, after a week of training for an eikaiwa converstaion school and a few more pints with fellow teachers. I endeavoured to find this hallowed establishment. This was done without the knowledge that Google maps GPS systems works without an internet connection, so I was using Maps as if a stagnant paper map. The quest from station to sento took approximately half an hour, crossed at least one park, involved at least two u-turns and finally, upon recognising the almighty ゆ sign as the marker of all things hot and wet, my excitement was immediately quashed with the recognition that Hagoromoyu was obviously closed. At this point I vowed never to go sento hunting without a prior phone call to establish some basic facts. If only I hadn’t abandoned this edict somewhere along the way.
About 6 months later, after what can only be described as ‘the kind of ball busting week that most other Japanese salarymen would probably look down upon as a walk in the park’ (my life is only occasionally tiring), I decided to go chasing geese again. Without a proper maps system again (dead battery). From the western suburbs. Made sense. But, nonetheless, after a couple of wrong turns, I still found that same ゆ sign within about 30 minutes of leaving Shinjuku Station. And I was just as rapt to have found it. I quickly dealt with all the usual protocol (shoes, keys, money, locker, naked) and got my sorry ass into the sento.
One of the first things I noticed about this joint, aside from the fact that all the bathing took place on the second floor, was that it seemed particularly busy for a Wednesday night at 9pm. Most of the baths seemed as if they only had room for one more person in them. Still, I had that sensation of trying to figure out what was what, so I took myself to task, and saw a sliding door up some stairs, behind which all I could see were some feet. I assumed that this was going to be a steam room or 40 degree sauna. Upon entering the room, I was met with four or five expressions of mild shock. I put this less to the fact that I was a foreigner but that I was clearly not holding a packet of cigarettes and had just entered the smoking room. Since when did bathhouses have smoking rooms in them? So I kept to my act, took a reclining seat in the back row and watched some really shitty tv, indulged in some passive smoking, enjoyed the cool breeze of the air conditioner and subsequently got the fuck outta there.
With this oddity behind me I decided to have a peep around, and very quickly the penny dropped. The sauna was just a regular sauna and there was none of the black Tokyo water to be found. As my mother was often fond of saying in the early to mid-90s “shit.fuck.shit”. This was not the place that my Uehara bather was talking about. Oh well, move along, move along. I got down to business in any case, belted myself stupid in the gas-heated sauna and truly got my eyes rolling after a solid one minute underwater plunge in what was possibly the smallest mizuburo I have ever been in. There was next to no room to lay down in at this place so things go a bit awkward at one point, in the sense that I didn’t know where the hell I should have sat down. Eventually I decided to mellow out in the bathing area. I decided to get my hope up again and ventured behind mystery door #2, but, alas, it just revealed an equally tiny rotenburo of an equally overpopulated nature. To be honest, it’s actually very rare for one to feel crowded at an onsen or a sento in Tokyo, but this was, after all, in west Shinjuku, the heathing belly of the megalopitan beast and, as far as I can tell, the closest bathouse to the busiest train station in the world (although I’m hoping I am wrong in this assessment of proximity).
I was pretty keen not to miss the least train home, so I bailed on this joint before I had properly spent my time there. The vibe was still going strong as I left, but as I was towelling up and letting the fan dry me, I went searching for Q-tips (cotton buds). Q-tips, where were the Q-tips? And I thought “Does this place really not have Q-tips” I could handle the fact that I got my wires crossed about the special features of this bathhouse, I could handle all the misdirections and misadventures… heck, I could even handle the absence of a place to lie down. But leaving a hotbox without cleaning my ears? That’s just bullshit and a Japan first for me. So, on that note, let’s see what the Board says:
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THE SCOREBOARD OF SENTO SUCCULENCE |
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| Features: | Sauna, mizuboro, denkiburo, small rotenburo, smoking room, about 3 ofuro at 42 degrees |
| Bath Heat/10 | 8 (42) |
| Sauna heat/10 | 7 (gas,90 degrees, but felt cooler) |
| Spatial aesthetic/5 | 2 |
| Quality of Chit chat/5 | 3 |
| Variety of bath types/10 | 4 |
| Quality of rotenburo /10 | 5 |
| Mizuburo/10 | 6 |
| Lighting /10 | 7 |
| Cost to value /5 | 3 (standard 460, but with sauna cost 1000) |
| Accessibility /5 | 3 (30min walk west from shinjuku station, but Nishishinjuku station is probably closer) |
| Little extras /10 | 4 (novelty of a smoking room, but, seriously now, where the f&%k are the Q-tips???) |
| Overall feeling /10 | 6 |
| OVERALL PROXIMITY TO BOILING POINT/100 | 58 |
3-24-20, Honmachi, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo
03-3372-4118
Business hours from 14:00 to 25:30
(business from 13:00 on Sunday)
Regular holiday Friday
September 22, 2014
bastubennett
sweatshopping 