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Sento are public communal bathing houses that are found across Japan. Many visitors to Japan are surprised to find that in this very advanced country, there are a lot of the homes which do not have their own baths. Although most of the homes built since the 1970's onwards have baths, resulting in a declining popularity and patronage of sentos, there are still a good number of city houses built immediately after the Second World War that do not have baths. Furthermore, many Japanese continue to patronize sentos, not because they have no baths at home, but for the social atmosphere of these places, what you would call "skinship".
As a visitor to Japan, you are unlikely to visit a Sento, which should not be confused with an Onsen, a hot spring resort. However, if you should want to venture into one, look out for the building that hangs a blue curtain with the word (ゆ) in hiragaina or 湯 in kanji. Both words is for yu, which means "hot water".
A sento in Kyoto
Author: Takanori Ishikawa (Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic)
The main difference between the sento and the onsen is that the sento uses heated tap water whereas the onsen use natural spring water. Some sentos have upgraded themselves to onsen by drilling deep into the thermal water source. In any case, natural spring water need to contain at least one out of 19 different chemical elements to qualify as onsen.
The sento is now segregated by sex. You will need to recognise the Japanese word otoko for men (男) and onna for women (女) to ensure you don't enter the wrong door. As with the onsen, there is shoe locker where you leave your footwear. A counter, some times in the form of a traditional horse-shoe-shaped front desk called the bandai, has an attendant that collects the entrance fee - set at ¥ 450 throughout Tokyo. There's a changing area with lockers for your clothes. The bathroom comprises the washing area where you clease, and the hot tubs where you dip. There are also toilet facilites, and sometimes sauna as well, in the more modern sentos.
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