Hot pot: Holiday bathers at Chinese spa help themselves to ‘forbidden’ fruit

Chinese tourists in northern China spent the May Day holiday weekend soaking in hot springs filled with apples, orange and lemons and occasionally helping themselves to the bobbing fruit, mainland media reports.

Guests at a hot springs resort in Luoyang, Henan province were seen snacking on the fruit floating in the crowded baths or balancing them on their bodies and faces, according to online news outlet Youth.cn.

The attraction, described by the news website as “bizarre” baths, were unveiled recently by the resort, which claimed that bathing with fruit at hot springs was popular in Japan and South Korea and could moisturise and whiten visitors’ skin.

The floating fruit salad attracted comments online after it appeared that some guests could not resist the temptation to eat fruit despite the fact that it had been washed in communal bathing water.

Other Chinese social media users simply said the idea was absurd and extravagant.