I’m not tired yet, but my eyes want to be closed.  I did go to the pool and swam 50 laps of breaststroke – the fifty laps started out as 24, then 40, then became 50.  I knew it wasn’t a 25-meter pool, so after I was done (and pretty exhausted, although my eyes hurt more than my muscles) I walked the length of the pool in 16 steps.  I’d secretly hoped it was a 20-meter pool, which would have meant I’d swum a kilometer, but now my hopes were down to 800 meters.  Still, not bad. 

I walked back to my towels and suddenly realized I had not worn the bath cap they’d given me.  I’m so not used to it that even carrying it along in my hand hadn’t reminded me to wear it.  To make up for it, and to at least get it wet, I pulled it on my head and swam two slow backstroke laps, then headed to the jacuzzi.  I’d been alone for all my laps, but just as I finished, an Asian guy walked in, spent a few seconds in the jacuzzi, and then liberated it just in time for me. 

After the jacuzzi I dried off, wrung out my swimsuit, and got in the ofuro, the Japanese hot tub.  There were two other Asians in that room, and by their language I figured they were Chinese.  After a short hyperventilation-inducing dip in the cold tub I entered the sauna, where I sat along with two of the Chinese.  One left after the hourglass ran out, but the other turned it around and held up his hand with his thumb and pinky sticking out.  “Six minutes,” he said.  (He said that in English, obviously – I would not have understood it otherwise.)  I held up my hand the same way, and he gave a short, surprised laugh, then proceeded to show me how to count with one hand in Chinese:
one: index raised
two: index and middle finger raised
three: index, middle finger, and ringfinger raised
four: all fingers raised except the thumb
five: all fingers raised
six: thumb and pinky raised
seven: thumb touching index and middle finger, the others folded into the palm of the hand
eight: thumb and index raised
nine: fist with a hooked index raised
ten: fist
These can also be combined to form two-digit numbers, but apparently it’s only used for small numbers.  Nobody motions 99 that way. 

This same guy kept knocking the hourglass whenever he suspected it was stuck, not realizing that the knocking was what made it look stuck: knocking would even the sand out, which would then run out starting in the middle and creating a crater in the middle without hardly moving the outside edges.  This would make it look like the sand wasn’t moving, which led him to knock and generate an apparent jump in the sand drainage. 

There was a notice on the sauna door asking guests not to throw water on the heating system, because it was an electrical heating system.  I suppose somebody once shorted out the sauna, ideally also shorting out the lights in the sauna and the ofuro – I can only imagine the mayhem.  “Holy heater, Batman – I can’t see a thing. and it smells like seared meat and cracked skulls in here!” 

After I got back out I noticed that the hotel supplied a swing dryer for the swimsuits.  The instructions noted that the machine might move a little, and asked to therefore not put it near the wall.  I stuck my trunks in and flipped the lever, and the machine started dancing the mad fandango – I had to hold it down to stabilize it and get a chance at flipping the lever off again.  So I rearranged my trunks with Swiss precision, the waistband encircling the legs and the pockets facing inward, closed the lid and flipped the lever again, and this time it quickly achieved a balanced high-speed rotation and started to drip water out the bottom.  I’m pretty thankful I don’t have to pack wet trunks tomorrow. 

I confessed the bath cap transgression to those in charge, who only laughed.  I guess they don’t take hygiene quite as seriously as they say, or at least not when no Japanese bathers are around who might be bothered at the sight of an uncovered swimmer.  I also asked about the length of the pool, and was told it was 15 by 8 meters.  So I’d swum even less, only 750 meters, and not only that, but my steps are only 93 centimeters instead of a manly meter. 

I consoled myself with the thought that I couldn’t have swum a kilometer anyway, because who’s gonna stop two-thirds of the way across the pool…