Yep, there really is nothing quite like a return visit.
In my travels around Japan’s onsen and saunas, there are a handful of places I would be truly happy to visit just once more before I die. Osaka Sauna DESSE is one of them. The joy of making it back to one of these places is even greater than the thrill of visiting a place I’d long dreamed of for the very first time.
I drove straight from Miki in Hyogo Prefecture all the way to Shinsaibashi in Osaka. I checked in at my hotel first, rested a bit, and then, at last, the moment of my return to Osaka Sauna DESSE arrived. Fueled by an extraordinary level of motivation, I made my way through the bustling Shinsaibashi shopping arcade to the entrance of the building. I know that hidden amid the noise of the city lies the most exquisite silence.
I signed up for the two-hour course at the front desk and headed for the main bathhouse. No need this time to glance around checking where everything is, like I did on my first visit. The whole layout is already in my head. What to do once inside, the house rules, where everything sits in the main bathhouse. Because I know it all, I can skip the unnecessary thinking and move smoothly through the flow, raising the quality of the experience. On a first visit there’s inevitably some tension, and you have to learn the whole setup from scratch. If it felt sublime even in that state, then it was already a given that a second visit would go deeper than the first.
Holding back my eagerness, I start by washing up. Then I head for the main event, the River Sauna. Having come all this way, this is the sauna I have to hit first. The cold plunge extends right into a beautiful glass-walled sauna room, so you step straight from the sauna into the cold plunge and then out the other side, a layout unlike anything else in Japan. The room sits at about 80°C (176°F). The heat seeps in slowly and surely, right to my core. The other guests, too, sweat away with excited faces before being drawn into the exit that goes by the name of the cold plunge. A few minutes later, having hit my limit, I rinsed off my sweat and dove in too. The water hovers around 16°C (61°F). Not too cold, the mellow water wraps gently around my flushed body. Soaking in the cold plunge, I make my way out to the world outside. Words can’t describe how good this feels.
When I sit down in a chair in the rest area, a deep totonou washes over me from the very first set. Looking around, I saw a row of rest chairs occupied entirely by men who had completely lost consciousness.
Following on from the rest area, I decided to spend my second set enjoying the Garden Sauna.
This is the one sauna I didn’t get to try on my last visit. When I stepped inside, to my delight, I had it all to myself. Beautifully designed benches are arranged around the stove in the center of the room. The wood is painted white, giving the space a bright feel. You can also do löyly by placing Ice Kugel, aromatic scents frozen into ice, on the stove. You can tell as the ice melts in the heat of the stove and steam carrying a lovely scent gradually spreads through the room. In both its beauty and its heat, it’s very much my kind of sauna.
After cooling down in the cold plunge, I once again sink into a daze in the rest area. One reason you can reach such a thorough totonou at Osaka Sauna DESSE is its rule of silent bathing. With no chatter pulling at your attention, you can quietly enjoy the sauna in a hushed space. There are people in both the sauna rooms and the rest area, yet the fact that everything is wrapped in silence helps you sink into a deep totonou.
For my third set, I go back into the River Sauna. Sure enough, going from the sauna room through the cold plunge and out is addictive. It’s something you want to savor again and again. When I entered the sauna room, it seemed an aufguss had taken place right while I was enjoying the Garden Sauna, and steam and aroma still hung in the air. Even the lingering scent is plenty. In fact, with fewer people around, this might be even more comfortable. No, it definitely is. Deliberately waiting until the aufguss is over to slowly enjoy the heat and scent is my way of doing things.
Now, in spirit I feel like doing about ten sets. But my body feels best when I call it quits somewhere between three and five. Just as there’s a saying about eating until you’re only 80 percent full, ending your sauna session while you still want a little more is the secret to the best afterglow.
Which sauna should I finish with? After much deliberation, I chose the Tea Room Sauna. It’s a sauna modeled on a tatami tea room. The moment I entered, an automatic löyly went off, and a toasty aroma drifted through the room. I sat cross-legged on the tatami, closed my eyes, and let my body slowly warm up. Wrapped in the reassurance of this Japanese space, I could feel the events of the day being slowly digested.
And with that, my long-awaited sauna session at Osaka Sauna DESSE comes to an end.
After the sauna comes the moment I’ve been waiting for: a delicious meal.
That day, even my luck with restaurants was perfect.
Just a one-minute walk from Osaka Sauna DESSE is a renowned curry spot called Kusaka Curry, and I managed to squeeze in right before closing. The curry was among the very best I’ve eaten in my life, a sublime curry after a sublime sauna. Now I can sleep like a log with no regrets.
Maybe tomorrow morning I’ll drop by Natural Onsen Nobuha-no-Yu Tsuruhashi. Thinking about the pleasures still ahead on my trip, I walked back to my hotel through Shinsaibashi at night. The journey isn’t over yet.
