Daily Dose of English 119
Hot Springs
Daily Dose of English 119
Intermediate
Hey everyone, my name is Ben and you are listening to a Daily Dose of English. This is a short, simple podcast that you can listen to every day to improve your English. You can find the transcripts for all episodes and more on benslanguagelab.com. I'm glad you could make it today. In this episode, we're gonna be talking about hot springs. Hot springs. Hot springs are sort of like natural baths and they're very nice to go sit in and they are quite lovely. And so we're gonna talk about them a little bit today. So first, hot springs are really anything that is a naturally occurring warm water source that you can go to. And well, just in general, a spring is a water source that usually has a specific, not like source, well, I said source, but like it's got a source that is not usually like water runoff, like on a mountain or from rain or something like that. And it's not, it's sort of like a lake, but there's a little bit of a difference to it. Typically springs are underground in some way and they have some additional, movement to them that makes them special and unique. So they're not just rivers or lakes or things like that, and they are springs, sort of specially, and that's why we have that word spring. And then there's the hot spring aspect, which is when the water is naturally warm from some sort of reaction in the water. and they are really nice because they typically have very nice water or water with lots of minerals. Minerals are things like chemicals, right, that are natural. Minerals are natural chemicals, essentially. Things like, what? Can I name any? Oxygen. Is that even a mineral? I don't think so. That's in water, but water's made of that. What the hell are, what are some minerals in the water? Spring water minerals. Let's see what the web says because I can't think of any words right now. Okay, it's not loading. Right. Whatever, you know what I mean, okay? Little bits of iron and carbon or whatever there is. God, I feel dumb. Anyways. But there's a lot of these minerals in spring water which can make it really... in a lot of ways very refreshing healthy for your body if you lack these minerals or whatever and there's a lot of people that feel like hot springs have healing qualities to them or they're very healthy for you you should go to them because they're they soothe your body and they're good for your skin and they're nourishing and things like that I don't really know if that's true, but I also kind of don't care in the case of hot springs because they're at least good for the mind, even if they're not great for the body somehow, which I think they are. They must be, right? Sure, they're not going to cure your broken leg or fix all your problems, but they're very relaxing, they feel really nice, and they just are a generally good place to go. And those minerals definitely help. There are hot springs in lots of different parts of the world, but I've only been to a few and mostly in North America since that's where I've spent most of my time. But I also know that there are lots of springs in Europe. Not as hot, though, are the popular ones, I think, because often they're used for drinking water. Wow, I feel like I'm talking in circles. Weird. But I specifically am thinking of, like, in Germany, for example, I've gone to several different springs where water comes out of natural springs and people like to drink it. And because it often is sparkling and carbonated in some way. So carbon can get into the water in a way that makes it feel bubbly, like a carbonated beverage. Typically, it's not as strong as that, but like as artificial carbonation, but it totally can be fizzy. And yeah. I also like to just drink spring water. Usually when it's available, I don't ever go out of my way to buy it, right? So you can buy spring water from certain brands, but that just doesn't seem worth it to me. Because it's not really that much better. It's not like amazing spring water or anything. But I do really like stopping when I go buy a spring that I know of to get water from. And there's a couple of springs that I would go to with my family when we were on road trips in Oregon or California. There's a good number of them. But there's one specifically fairly close to where I'm from on the way to the beach. And you can stop there. And there's always water coming out. And it's very delicious. It's really good water. And it's always really cold too, which is nice. So it's the opposite of a hot spring. But that's good for drinking, are the regular cold springs. But going back to the main topic of this episode, which is hot springs. Hot springs can also be fantastic for vacations or for resting. And they also tend to be a bit closer than like going to a different country. And so they can be a good middle ground. And actually just this last weekend, I went to a hot spring in Mexico here. and it was really nice. I'm not exactly sure what kind of hot spring it is, but there was a lot of water with various minerals in it. Actually, let me look it up. Does my internet work now? Yes, it is. And there was a lot of, well, the water is very nice and it was warm. It wasn't hot, it was definitely like warmer. But the water, it was really refreshing because it's different than having like artificially hot water and it's not the same as cold. And so it's really nice to just sort of sit in and relax in. Yeah, I just looked it up and it comes out, the water was about 20 degrees Celsius is what it says. And it comes from a mountain so it's probably actually not technically a hot spring but close enough And They were warm and it's on this resort and so we stay there for really only like a day, but it was really nice and there are a lot of, um, more stuff to that, to the area that we didn't get to do because it was, so it was closed because of actually really, really high water flow is what, what they said is that there's the river that goes through it, that you can usually swim in, but there was too much water right now. And so they close it down for this part of the, of the, um, the season. And so, yeah, not technically a hot spring, but, Like I did mention that like, oh, yeah, there's technically a difference between a spring and a pool or whatever. But in reality, we don't really talk about them that differently. So if you say that I went to a hot spring, that's not technically a hot spring. Nobody's going to be like, oh, is it literally a hot spring or does it look like one? Because it's just how we talk about them. But. Yeah, I haven't been to all very many hot springs. There's a, I think one more that I've gone to and I don't even know if I went because a lot of the ones that I go to are, they're like more like hot baths. So they're not, they're artificial in some way. Um, but it's something that I definitely want to do more of. There's because they're really lovely and they're often in beautiful parts of the world where they're just lovely nature. And I would definitely like to go see more hot springs in my life. And so I think it's going to be a goal of mine to make that a goal rather. It's like to go to them more often. Um, I've definitely seen lots of things about, um, the onsens in Japan. because those are very famous, and they're all over, and they are, I think, usually hot springs. I don't know if they, again, if they literally are, but they definitely act like them. And there's very old traditions around onsens, and I would really like to go see some of those, because they just look so beautiful, and picturesque is a good word to describe them. But then also here, like I said, in Mexico, North America, there's plenty of really cool springs and hidden places that I really should go see because it's not too difficult and can be a lot less expensive than like traveling abroad, right? like going to Japan for me would be really expensive, right? A big expensive plane ticket, having to stay in a hotel, having to get around, all these different things would be probably several thousands of dollars. But going to a local hot spring, I took a bus and getting out there per person was like, I don't know, like probably, well, getting there and back probably in total like $50, but compared to a plane ticket, that's really cheap. And then staying there for a day is also a lot more affordable than staying at an expensive hotel downtown. And so you can find really cool, really nice deals for really lovely vacations by going to more local places like this that still offer you this really nice, relaxing time, so. Yeah, that's all that I have for today. I know that I actually didn't have that much to talk about hot springs, but I hope that you still learned a little bit of something here and there. And I'm curious to know down in the comments, let me know, have you gone to hot springs? Do you like them? Are there any that you recommend or does your country have any famous hot springs that you think that I should go see at some point? I'd love to know and see your comments. That's everything for today. Thank you so much for taking the time to listen to a Daily Dose of English. I hope that you enjoy, and I'll see you again tomorrow for another episode. Bye-bye.
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