This is the view from the sun deck at Banya in San Francisco.
I seem to spend all my weekends at one bath house or another.
One of my favorite parts of traveling was experiencing bathing rituals.
There was the hammam in Morocco where I got undressed with all the covered women and felt refuge in our womanhood.
There was the wood heated banya on top of the dock in Alaska in which I did all my bathing.
Turkey, Scandinavia, Korean bath houses, native American sweat lodges in Banff with a frozen river plunge, herbal steams in Thailand...anything for a good sweat.
My friend from Evanston, C, is a fan of sweating as well and has been showing me some of the spots to go in San Francisco.
I was mostly going to Imperial Spa, a Korean spa on Geary separated with a mens side and womens side. I like the room with heated tiles, tatami mats and Chinese herbs hanging on the walls. I also love to get stretched, scrubbed, pulled and prodded by the Korean ladies in their underwear. They have no mercy. You come out with the smoothest skin ever! The massage is similar to Thai massage where it feels like yoga being done to you.
We went to Kabuki which is a Japanese bath house also on Geary. They have a swim suit required night that is co-ed. The decor and ambiance is really nice, zen Japanese style. You're not allowed to talk and the place is filled with hipsters and the like. So, one might forgo the ambiance to be able to go naked, talk and have a cultural experience.
I, for one, am a culture enthusiast. Let me be the kitten in a litter of puppies or the black sheep, trying out lifestyles other than my own and I am in my element!
So, for that the Banya was a cultural adventure. It was a week night, no hipsters to be seen. Just three of us and a whole bunch of naked Russian dudes. Yup, for a while there I was the only naked chick. I could here D giggling about it all the way in Chicago.
It's easy to do the whole when in Rome thing...when you are in Rome! No, it wasn't bad but I have been in our good 'ol Puritan society for a while now and heck, I got my Midwestern sensibilities back there for a moment, which gave me a little pause before disrobing in a bathhouse full of dudes. But, hey I did Istanbul where two Muslims guys were my masseuses... I won't tell the story here, call me... it was a cultural experience.
As I wrote in the Moroccan Hamman post, I often wonder what it would be like if communal bath houses had been apart of our culture? Would the view of body image be so distorted? How would we be as a culture if the naked body wasn't so forbidden? And heck, how would we be if we had a ritual in our lives designed to relax and sweat out toxins?
When I was 20, I had experienced that need to be thin that so many American women go through. I ate a Vegan diet, I exercised constantly. I was 98 pounds. And you know what made me stop obsessing over my body image? The communal sauna. For the first time, I saw other women's bodies in the nude. I mean, I had seen naked women but here were handfuls of them and not a single one looked like the movies or in the ads and they were all beautiful, in all the shapes and sizes. The sauna taught me to be comfortable in my own skin.
I am so excited that the Bay Area has so many bath house options. I'd go everyday if I lived down there, I am sure! Have you ever been? What is your experience?