Culture Shock

When you hear about culture shock it always seems like something that a close minded person would experience. I've studied a lot of things about Japan but when you throw yourself into a home stay situation in a country whose language you apparently have a childlike grasp of you may find yourself in a situation you really were not prepared for. For my I experience what people call culture shock at the public bath. My host dad wanted to help me de stress before my first day of college classes in Japan so he thought it was a good idea. The whole car ride there I was getting very very nervous. I knew what a public bath was, and I also knew about how many non-Japanese were going to be in that bath somewhere in the ball park of zero to zero. On the plus side being naked in front of about 200 people who are all staring at you shocks you into never caring about using a urinal directly next to someone ever again. I do have to say though with all the different baths of varying temperatures, a sauna, and a bath with bubble jets I was pretty relaxed. There was this one strange device that shot high frequency vibrating water at my lower back and made all my muscles clench as hard as they could, when I first sat in it the face I made caused a pack of small children to burst into laughter. It was all good fun.