The remainder of the eight floors consist of private rooms and there is a sunroof on top of the building. Most of the rooms have traditional short Japanese curtains (noren) to partition them from the adjoining hallway. The third floor has a long corridor and four darkened rooms. The second has more lockers, showers, steam room, dry sauna and public baths (sento). The first floor is a lobby and a locker area. The Tokyo sauna I visit has eight floors connected by an elevator and a flight of steep stairs. Most patrons are middle-aged but a few are older and some are in their twenties or early thirties. Men sit at small tables smoking or wander slowly, glancing discreetly at their quarries. After changing from your street clothes and draping the larger towel around your waist, you are then free to roam the dimly lit rooms and corridors. He will exchange them for a small plastic bag that contains a bath towel, a wash towel and possibly a yukata patterned with the sauna name and logo.
Give the shoe locker key and the entry ticket to the assistant behind the counter. Buy a sauna entry ticket from the vending machine in the foyer.
Deposit ten yen, lock the shoe locker and remove the key. Remove your shoes and put them in your chosen shoe locker. Japanese gay saunas, like most else in Japan, are complex places where subtle protocols prevail.
