Shiriyaki Onsen, Nakanojo-machi, Gunma Pre.

Two soakers preparing step in the hot spring river. Four soakers including Onsen Soaker near upper right corner. Upper part of the river is frozen.

Located near the famous Kusatsu Onsen in Gunma Prefecture, the Shiriyaki Onsen(尻焼温泉), literally means "buttocks burning hot springs", is one of the rare onsens gushing from the bottom of the river and soakable entire width of the river year round in beautiful location. This in one of my most favorite onsens in Kanto Region.

A part of the Nagasasazawa-gawa or Nagasawazawa river, makes a large open-air bath, about 25 meters by 30 meters. If you watch carefully, you can see hot springs are gushing from the bottom. Temperature of the river water was 30-38°C last weekend. I found comfortable spot of around 38°C and soaked an hour and half. The air temperature was 3-4°C.



Clothing is optional. In the summer, many families visit and soak wearing swimsuits, bring tubes for swimming and other goods. Well, it looks like beach sides and I avoid to visit in mid summer.

In the winter, many male visitors soak in their birthday suites just hanging washing towels in front of their bodies. Ladies soak in swimsuits or in clothe for mixed baths, but there is no changing room and you have to change clothes in your car or public rest room nearby.

There is also an indoor bath at the riverside. Clothing prohibited in this bath. The water temperature here is warmer than in the river as hot springs directly piped in this bath.

There is only a few ryokans around without any kind of shops, you need to bring towels and other stuffs you may need.

If you're nature oriented, you'll like the Shiriyaki Onsen.


You can see the hot spring pool over the roof of the indoor bath.

◆Shiriyaki Onsen (尻焼温泉）

Type: Gender Mixed open-air bath.

Address: Kuni, Nakanojo-machi, Agatsuma-gun, Gunma Pref.

Location: 36.648460, 138.64791

Access: Almost all soakers visit with their own vehicles. If you want to visit with public transportation, take bus from Naganohara Kusatsuguchi Station of Agatsuma Line to Hanasiki Onsen (花敷温泉). There are only tree or four service a day for each way. You can walk to Shiriyaki Onsen from the Hanashiki in 15-20 minutes.

Available hour: Round the clock round the year. Sometimes the water level is too high to soak especially after heavy rain and snow melting season.

Admission fee: Free

Equipment: indoor bath

My rating (A-E): A


The red letters tell "Swim Suites Prohibited".

Rikka Rikka Yu, Naha City, Okinawa Pref.

Okinawa, the southern most prefecture of Japan is an ideal winter retreat. The Rikka Rikka Yu is the easiest to access among five onsens I visited in Okinawa this month.

Located just behind the Kokusai Dori (International Street), one of the most popular tourist spots in Naha, you can walk from either of the Makishi Station or the Kencho-mae Station of the Yui Rail, the only railway in Okinawa.



It isn't a tourist trap. There aren't open-air baths. Most visitors are local residents, I didn't see any tourists except myself. I can't deny it's a bit rundown (opened in 1998), but their Iwaburo or rock bath has some onsen atmosphere. Actually, they supply onsens only to the Iwaburo, other bath are filled with heated waters.

The sodium hot springs is heated to around 42°C, rather hot for Okinawans. Temperature of other onsens in Okinawa is usually 38-40°C. "Rikka Rikka" means "Let's go together!" in Okinawan local dialects.

◆Rikka Rikka Yu （りっかりっか湯）

Type: Gender separated indoor bath, day visit only

Address: 2-16-36 Makishi, Naha, Okinawa Pref.

Location: 26.217897, 127.688599 (Map in English)

Business hour: 6:00 AM to 0:00 AM

Holiday: None

Admission fee: ¥950 on weekday ¥1,200 on weekend and national holiday. If you need towel hire, ¥1,300 and ¥1,450 each.

My rating (A-E): C


You can walk from Kencho-mae Station or Makishi Station of Yui Rail, the only railway in Okinawa. It takes about 10 minutes.

Yokikan, Ito Onsen, Shizuoka Pref.

Came back from Ito Onsen, Shizuoka Prefecture. My pick today is a ryokan named "Yokikan". A 30 meters long in-house cable car (see pictures on their official website) takes you to an open-air bath on upper floor. You can see the Ito town, the sea and others from the bath.

It's a mixed bath, but as for day visit, probably they will let you or your group to soak for yourself or yourselves when business is slow. If you stay overnight, it turns "ladies only bath" at 7:30PM to 9:00PM and 6:00AM to 7:30 AM.

There are gender separated indoor baths as well. If you also want to soak indoor bath, you have to pay another ¥1,000. Of course you can soak as much asu you want if you stay over night.

Limited express "Izu Odoriko" takes you to Ito directly from Tokyo Station taking less than 2 hours.



◆Yokikan, Ito Onsen, Shizuoka Pref. （伊東温泉陽気館）

Type: Gender mixed open-air bath, gender separated indoor baths

Address: 2-24 Suehiro-cho, Ito-shi, Shizuoka Pref.

Location:  34.966944, 139.090591

Access: About ten minutes walk from the Ito Station.

Business hour of day visit : 11:00 AM to 3:00 PM

Holiday: Busy season (new year, golden week, mid August)

Admission fee: ¥1,000 (including bath towel hire)

Link: Official website of Yokikan in English

My rating (A-E): B


Inside of their cable car.

Useful Site: FREESPOT MAP

This post is unrelated to onsen. Finding free Wi-Fi spots is sometimes big hustle when I go abroad, especially in countries not often visit. I'll visit Mexico next month after more than 10 years blank and know nothing about Wi-FI services there now.

Some people coming to Japan have same problem as mine, I guess. You can search free Wi-Fi spots in Japan with this FREESPOT MAP.

If you already know where to go in Japan, this map might be helpful. Just click one of 47 prefectures you'll visit on the map, and search further with pull-down menu on upper right. One problem is ...well, my map displayed in Japanese. Hope yours are not.

HOT SPOT is a charging service run by different company, and One DAY Passport costs ¥500.

Furusato Kanko Hotel, Furusato Onsen, Kagoshima Pref.

[update] Furusato Kanko Hotel filed for bankruptcy and Kagoshima District Court accepted their filings on Oct 2, 2012. The hotel was closed down end of Sep.

The mysterious Ryujin-buro (Dragon God Bath) is usually crowded during day time.

Furusato Onsen is located south of Sakurajima, an active volcanic island in Kagoshima City, Kagoshima Pref, in Kyushu Island. Furusato Kanko Hotel is known for its Ryujin-buro, a scenic open-air mixed bath faced on Kinko Bay.

The word Ryujin stands for "Dragon God", and there is a shrine just beside the bath. You have to wear white Yukata (Kimono) to soak the bath regardless your gender (For the Quick Movie and Photo Gallery, see their official site). Because it's supposed to be rude to show your body to the god. Apart from onsen pools, it's one of the very rare "clothing necessary" onsens.


You'll see many small stone statue under roots of the Ficus wightiana. The tree is more than 200 years old.

Although the sodium hot spring is clorinated and circulated (hot spring water is being reused), I could recognize mild touch of the onse water. There are gender separated indoor baths, and private baths, too.

Please note "Ontake", the volcano in the Sakurajima Island is very active, minor explosion counts more than 700 times in a year recently, and sometimes they have to close the Ryujin-buro due to volcanic ash.


A view of the Sakurajima from Shiroyama Park, Central Kagoshima City. Furusato Onsen sits south (right side on the picture) of the island.


◆Furusato Kanko Hotel, Furusato Onsen, Kagoshima Pref.（古里温泉　ふるさと観光ホテル）

Type: Gender mixed open-air bath, gender separated indoor baths, private baths

Address: 1076-1 Furusato-cho, Kagoshima City, Kagosima Pref.

Location: 31.551774,130.656482

Access: Free hourly shuttle services (only in the afternoon on weekdays) from the Sakurajima Port Bus Terminal, taking 15 minutes one way.

Business hour of day visit: 8:00 AM to 10:00 PM

Holiday: As for Ryujin-buro, usually unavailable up to 3:00 PM on every Monday and Thrsday, every Wednesday for indoor bath.

Admission fee: ¥1050 for Ryujin-buro and indoor bath including rental yukata, ¥530 for indoor bath only, ¥3150 for private bath (one hour)

Link: Official web-site (Japanese Only)

My rating (A-E): C


Hot spring for drinking located at lobby of the hotel.