Shirakigawachi Onsen Asahiya Ryokan

Asahiya Ryokan sits deep in the mountains of eastern Izumi City, Kagoshima Prefecture, close to the border with Kumamoto. It stands beside a stream about 12 kilometres east of central Izumi along National Route 447, sharing the narrow valley with only one neighbour, Shirakigawachi Onsen Sanso. Local tradition holds that a hunter discovered the spring during the New Year hunting season in the Enkyo era of the 1740s, and the water has served as a bathing cure for villagers ever since. Mobile phone reception does not reach the valley.

The water is classified as a simple sulphur spring, hypotonic and alkaline. The main source emerges at 42.0 degrees Celsius and a second source at 44.0 degrees, with a pH between 9.2 and 9.3. The clear, colourless water carries a distinct egg-like sulphur aroma and leaves the skin noticeably smooth. Its defining feature is ashimoto-yushutsu: the spring rises directly through cracks in the bedrock that forms the floor of the tub, fills the bath and spills over the rim. No heating, dilution, recirculation or chlorination is used.

The bathhouse holds separate indoor baths for men and women, each carved from the raw bedrock rather than built from tile or concrete. The pools are small, holding four or five bathers at most, and the unpolished rock underfoot can be slippery. The baths are operated jointly with neighbouring Shirakigawachi Onsen Sanso. Bathing is available from 06:00 to 21:00 year-round for 150 yen for adults, 100 yen for junior and senior high school students and 50 yen for children aged three to elementary school age. Free parking for about ten cars is available.