Chotto Hen

So a slight combination of classes starting, being lazy, and catching a virus on my computer has delayed my updates here and elsewhere.

 

Anyway, just wanted to bring some recent news up on here.

 

Last weekend, IES went on a field trip to Kanazawa, where we stayed at this awesome ryokan with 3 different baths, including a co-ed open aired bath.

 

Now the first thing that people would do hearing that is cringe or go "oh-ho?~" XD It really isn't as embarrassing or pervy as you'd think. The males and females are separated at the entrance, and everybody is required to wear a towel over the body/privates. It's like hanging out at a pool, only with the knowledge that only a towel protects your modesty. At the very least, they do have a separate far off pool for women who feel that they still need their privacy.

 

The manager of the outdoor bath is an obaasan, which makes sense because I'm conviced that obaasans secretly rule the country. They're everywhere. They're the people that clean up the subway stations, train cars, streets, just about anything and everything. And they're ninjas about it. If you dropped a bottle on the ground, it'd disappear before it hits the ground and then you'll black out to find yourself face to face with a legion of obaasans, who'd do something nasty, like feed you natto, or make you feel abysmally guilty for making the obaasan with a major back hump pick up your trash. oO;

 

But yeah, in this case of the ofuro house obaasan, she makes sure that everyone wears their towels correctly, both men and women. This is why having an obaasan makes sense. If you have an ojiisan, it's an automatic 'chikan' alert when he 'helps' the girls. Take two other guys who were in the changing room with me at the time. One of the guys wondered if there was a bigger towel size, and she ushered him back into the room just so that she can say "chotto hen" (that's weird) and open up the towel (it's a multi-snap fastener style around the waist) so she can fasten it for him. My friend just stood there awkwardly speechless.

 

Then comes the other guy. She just walked over to him, opened his towel up, then said "chotto hen ne" before fixing it for him. Awkward silence occurs, and I ninja-ed myself out of there before she attempts to call my hip region "hen" for whatever reason. All in all, the one thing that I learned from this is that obaasans are immune to being pervs.

 

Somehow…