The Wonderful Peculiarity of Onsen

Peter Job recalls his visits to two onsen and the beautiful detail in their design

Two of the onsens I have visited were unique in their own way for very different reasons.

The first was a drop-in onsen called Lamune-see.

In one corner of the bath, a large bubble comes up from the earth every 20 seconds or so. It is very comfortable to sit in, but not easy to get in position, since farmers come in after work and know how to dominate access to their rustic carbonation.

Moving right up the scale I went on to Kyushu’s far South coast, beyond Kagoshima, to the remarkable Ibusuki Hakysuikan, which has its origins in the prosperous years of the late 1600s. This is a luxurious place near the ocean with the excellent facilities that one expects to find in such an onsen. Its wonderful peculiarity is an obsession with high quality Satsuma ceramics.

You can see the exhibits well enough on stands in the museum area but the surprise comes in the bath, where one wall is screened with exquisite tiling showing women and children washing and drying themselves with all the necessities, copper ringed tubs, little blue towels and a muscular masseuse. There is a protruding water container, carefully jointled like a large wooden sake pot. You can see the graining of the dark stained wood on the floor. Through an opening there is a view of a cloud-pruned, ceramic tree.

The naked ladies are seen in all positions, standing, sitting, crouching down, facing you and facing away. One lady has just left to put her beautiful clothes on. The bodies are so realistic that they seem real, even down to their reflections in the pool and the sparkle of water on their skins.

You take in the spectacle as if it were a 3D film. You find it hard to imagine imagine that the surface that you are looking is actually flat.