If anybody could think of a better title, I'd be grateful. Oh, I wrote this quite a few years ago and found it in a drawer somewhere, tightened it up a bit and hoped it might interest a few people.

The stereotype of a Japanese tourist is someone dressed in head to toe designer labels, babbling away excitedly outside the Tower of London or getting their photo taken in Leicester Square, brandishing a state of the art Nokia at anything vaguely noteworthy. On holiday in their own country, however, the Japanese are far more sedate. I witnessed this for myself while on a weekend trip to Kawaji, a spa resort near the world heritage site of Nikko and a popular place for Japanese 'salarimen' and their familes to unwind. The experience was authentically Japanese, and a million miles away from the tourist traps of Tokyo and Kyoto. This really is its appeal for foreign visitors, as attractions in Kawaji itself are few and far between.

The average Japanese worker, it would appear, is under so much pressure, and modern life exerts such stress on city dwellers, that the only way to relax is to check into a hotel many miles from any kind of temptation or diversion, preferably somwhere with a very limited transport system and completely lacking in any of the benefits or consolations of modern life. Or that's why I surmised on my first evening in Kawaji, when I failed to find a restaurant, bar, cinema or convenience store. Looking on the bright side, I wasn't in any danger of geting lost: the lights from my eight-storey hotel were the only thing to puncture the inky blackness of the surrounding countryside. What, I wondered, could hundreds of Japanese be doing here?

In such a hotel, with families of Japanese sometimes encompassing two or three generations, the normal rules of behaviour do  not necessarily apply, and guests are reduced to the role of children in a rather expensive nursery school. Things are done not so much for the benefits of the guests but for the convenience of the staff: meals are served in your room between six and seven (whether you're hungry then or not), and cleared away again after a reasonable interval. There is no menu - you eat what you are given. Privacy is also something that is given rather than taken. The 'Do not disturb' sign is often ignored, and a maid will come in to change the towels when she feels like it.

This passivity on behalf of the guests is encouraged, or maybe symbolised, by the casual attire adopted by all the guests, whether at breakfast or on the way to the hotel spa. The yukuta is a cotton dressing gown, always belted and often decorated with Japanese script, and any hotel worth its salt provides its guests with a fresh one for each day of their visit. They are coupled with the obligatory slippers, which are always discarded in the genkan (hallway) before entering a room proper. Children, parents and grandparents wander around the hotel wearing matching yukuta and slippers, and the sight of them trooping along in a line, headed by the adults with the children following, reminded me of a family of ducks off to the pond.

Along with the yukuta, the communal bath is another intrinsic part of the Japanese hotel experience. Hot springs, or onsen, are an important part of Japanese life, and the hotel bath is a poor second cousin, but it is rather pleasant. Men and women have separate changing rooms and baths, although I have heard of mixed onsen in places even more remote than Kawaji. First, you enter a room with shelves full of small plastic laundry baskets - this is where you leave your clothes, towels and modesty. Next, enter the shower area where you sit on a small plastic stool while washing away the grime of the outside world. Then, all glowing and clean, you can slip into the hot bath, usually a little too hot for comfort. Five minutes later get out, shower with cold water (yes, cold, it's good for the circulation) and then return to the hot bath. Continue until your cares have been sluiced away, or boredom sets in.

The bath is at the heart of the Japanese hotel, but it always seem over-rated to me, and not half as eventful as its Turkish counterpart. Maybe my life as an English Teacher was too easy -  I had to be an overworked businessman (or a businessman's wife) in one of the world's worst economies to really enjoy the experience. Or maybe there is a spiritual aspect, a pleasure the Buddhist Japanese can only really appreciate, leaving foreigners a little bemused by the monotony of the experience.

Two days of enforced inactivity was enough to leave me yearning for the chaos and sensory overload of Tokyo. Maybe the Japanese feel the same, and that's wny they go to places like Kawaji: to make them appreciate the pleasures of city life. But talking to Noko, my Japanese friend who had recommended a visit to Kawaji, I realised her experience had been completely different to mine. She had loved the feeling of isolation, the lack of modern conveniences equalling an escape from the consumer-producer cycle that had propelled Japan to economic supremacy, but now seems to be leading the country towards the inevitable fatigue of conspicuous consumption.

For most westerners, especially those living abroad, a holiday is an interactive experience and choice is a pleasurable necessity. Conversely, the Japanese holiday-maker is an adult who willingly gives up responsibility and personal choice for passivity, the pleasure of having others choose where he will go, what he will eat and when he will do it. After studying some Buddhist philosophy, I realised how its central tenets of letting go and non-attachment were so effortlessly practised by my fellow guests, and the mix of centuries' old spiritual practice in a modern setting intrigued me immensely. It is a lesson our increasingly stressed-out society could do well to learn.