my onsen adventures - part 2

my second experience was in one of the most famous onsen around, the one Soseki's novel Bochan takes place in. it's a beautiful old building, on 2 levels (although there are so many stairs going so many places that it feels like a lot more). more to the point, it was used as the backdrop for the Japanese animation 'Sen to Chihiro', otherwise known as 'spirited away'. it was all right, but confusing. we didn't understand enough Japanese to figure out whether there were changing rooms, and, upon seeing most men in the tea room dress back from their yukata to their clothes in front of everyone, i thought i might as well do the same. so i tried to take my clothes off as inconspiciously as possible (which, for a woman, doesn’t tend to work well), but the women around me seemed shocked. i wondered why. after all, noone gave the men a second look. maybe it was my being a gaijin (foreigner). as we walked down to the women's bath, i realised why they had been so upset: there was a changing room downstairs! ooops.