On Wednesdays I don’t have morning classes, so this wednesday I decided to check out the Atsubetsu Ward Pool (プール). The pool is near the Shin-Sapporo Station, McDonalds, and other Government Offices.

When I arrived I thought it looked like a fairly modern pool. It was 9:30am and the pool opened at 10:00am. They still let people in, but I just had to wait a bit to get dressed. As I waited, men and women in their 70’s started showing up. With in 15-20 minutes there was nearly 25 of them all getting ready to swim. I decided to check out the schedule for Wednesday at 10:00am. Using my eletronic dictionary I deciphered the schedule to find out that 10am Wednesday’s is elder exercise hour. I should of known…. water exercises.

The room was filled with women in their 70’s looking at me with those curious “what’s a young gaijin doing here?” None of them came up and asked me who I was or what I was (trying) to do. Instead most of them smiled and talked amongst themselves.

The locker room finally opened… I went in and got changed and went to the shower room. Next to the shower room is a toilet room. In order to use it though you had to put on those familure slippers that never seem to fit. The shower room was like any shower room only there are stalls and the shower head is the kind you pull out and shower down by hand. After taking a quick shower I went out to the pool. In this pool however, both men and women have to pass though the “shower gate.” Unfortunately I don’t have a pic of the shower gate, but hopefully I decribe this thing.

When you walk from the locker room to the pool both men and women’s rooms unite at this short hallway with shower heads on either side. The drill is that both men and women have to pass through the gate. The gate is no more then two shower walls with many shower spouts and what apeared to be a motion detector. So as you pass through the gate the shower heads start spraying you down and then turn off as you leave. It was literally a human car wash and most likely the most bazzar thing I’ve seen at a pool.

The actual pool was pretty big. The room had about three different pools in it. The first was a Exercize pool where most of the group went. The second was a children’s pool (kodomo pu-ru), And the third pool was a regular lap pool. However, due to the swimming classes going on, there was only one or two open lanes for lap swim. After going this far I was going to do it no matter what.

I made my way towards the water when the lifeguard caught me and the little Japanese dialog began, “Chooto Matte, Chooto Matte” she called out. “Hai, dooshita-n desu ka?” I replied, “Ano… eru-ringu to ringu mo motenai!” she commanded, “Soshite, booshi nai~ oyoogi nai!” she continued.

Translation: “Wait, Wait….” she called. “Yes.. what’s the matter?” “You can’t wear jewelery in the pool and if you don’t have a swimming cap you can’t swim.” She motioned for me to wait as she quickly ran into a side room and removed a cap for me to wear. I went back and “debarbed” myself of all jewelery and then tucked my long hair into this small little cap. With the cap on I looked in the mirror and seriously didn’t recognize myself. I should say that I didn’t bring goggles either so when I was done swimming my eyes were bright red as you can see the pic. The Japanese really chlorinated their pool so my eyes buzzed for a while afterwards.

All in all, I swam laps for about a hour and a half. Afterwards I decided to leave back through the shower gate and then out. The total cost was in the range of 500-600 yen. I thought it was kinda spendy but it was a pretty hightech center. I might go back some other day, did I mention it was heated? Oh yeah that made a big difference plus I feel good about working out. Japan seems to be giving me a pretty good workout!

~J out

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