Upfront
FOREIGN CORRESPONDENCE
Sento sensibility J
D R E A M D E S T I N AT I O N
The Nam Hai HOI-AN, VIETNAM
Fronted by a stretch of powdery-white sand dotted with palm trees, a stay here is the ultimate escape. While away your days lounging on the picturesque beach or by one of three infinity pools, and when hunger calls, wander over to one of the restaurants for local, Western or Indian fare. Foodies can cook their own feast at the cooking academy, beginning with a morning foray to the Hoi An markets, an addition made when Four Seasons took over the resort in 2016. Other activities span everything from beachside tai chi to cycling through the resort’s lush tropical gardens. Tatyana Leonov
E AT / D R I N K
ROLL UP, ladies and gents, to see 1½ tonnes of watermelon transformed into cake! Kids, gaze in awe at the ultrasonic cakecutting device and Japanese egg-cracking machine! The Entertainment Quarter just upped its entertainment with awardwinning Black Star Pastry’s two-storey, glass-walled, on-view bakery and adjoining cafe, open daily for breakfast and lunch. The pastries are formidable and these flower cakes ($6) so chocolatey, they don’t keep reminding you they are vegan. Jill Dupleix
8 GoodWeekend
BL ACK STAR PASTRY BENT STREET, ENTERTAINMENT QUARTER, MOORE PARK BLACKSTARPASTRY.COM.AU
Amelia Lester
APANESE BATHROOMS were an adjustment on first moving here. Showers are becoming more popular with younger generations, but baths are still the norm. A Western arrangement – with a separate shower, bath, toilet and sink – is called “hotel-style”, and at least in the apartments I inspected, uncommon. More usual is a bathing area set off from the rest of the bathroom as a sealed chamber. Like a lot of people who value their snooze button, I’d always looked on baths with disdain. Pronouncing a love of baths seemed like an affectation, one adopted by whimsical actresses who were British, or wanted to be. Morning showers were surely obligatory in late-capitalist society, just another part of the daily grind along with coffee in a to-go cup and crumbling public transport. Besides, aren’t baths worse for the environment? Not necessarily. You’ll be pleased to know this question has been tackled by the US Geological Survey. It found that a full tub of bath water is 36 gallons, or around 136 litres. A shower without a water-saving shower head uses five gallons, or almost 19 litres, a minute. I know, it’s Saturday, so I’ve done the maths for you. A shower is better only if you are spending less than seven minutes in there. Many Japanese homes are equipped with water heaters which enable the temperature of the bath water to remain constant. This means that entire families can use the same bath water of an evening. Sometimes, in the olden days, the same water was even used for laundry the next day. But what about the notion of soaking in one’s own filth? How do you get truly clean in a bath, especially if three family members have used it before you? Here is where the Japanese rule of an extremely quick pre-bath
scrub-down with the shower head comes into its own. No one’s using the bath to clean themselves. Instead, a bath is a way of meditating on the day that’s been, and, in 2018, reaping the psychological benefits of taking time out from the smartphone. (A Kindle is about as high-tech as you want to get in there.) Tsumura, a Japanese pharmaceutical company focusing on bath products, has helpfully released a step-by-step guide to the perfect soak. Among their recommendations are that shoulders should remain out of the water; the water temperature, tepid (39-40 degrees Celsius); and the optimum time spent in the tub about 20 minutes. This is long enough to feel relaxed but not comatose. A survey of Japanese men proved the point: apparently,
“Like a lot of people who value the snooze button, I’d looked on baths with disdain.” the bath is the most relaxing time they spend at home, more than enjoying a beer, chatting with their spouse or playing with their children. (No word on the women, but I imagine they’d feel the same way.) Having become a bath convert, it was time to take my habit to the next level. On a recent weekend I visited the local public bath, or sento, which, especially for the elderly, functions as a kind of sex-segregated community centre. Entry is around $15, but you can stay as long as you like, bobbing about the wonderfully fragrant cedar-lined tub, the heated bath, and – my personal favourite – the outdoor heated pool, which overlooks a Japanese garden. I realised there that, through the power of the bath to quiet the mind, I was witnessing something very rare: a group of strangers engaged in an act of communal contemplation. n
ANNA KUCERA; ILLUSTRATION BY SIMON LETCH
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