Toei Onsen Hanamatsuri no Yu

Toei Onsen Hanamatsuri no Yu is a day-trip hot spring facility located in Shimoda, Toei Town, Kitashitara District, Aichi Prefecture, deep in the Oku-Mikawa mountains of eastern Aichi. Opened in 2002, the facility sits beside Tsuta-no-Fuchi, a roughly 70-meter-wide, 10-meter-high waterfall often called the Niagara of Oku-Mikawa. Its name honors Hana Matsuri, a sacred Shinto dance ritual handed down in Toei Town for more than 700 years since the Kamakura period and designated a National Important Intangible Folk Cultural Property in 1976, reflecting the deep bond between hot-spring bathing and local faith in this remote corner of Aichi.

The spring is classified as a sodium-calcium chloride spring (hypotonic, neutral, low-temperature spring), with a pH of 7.4, a source temperature of 32.2°C, a discharge rate of 430 liters per minute, and total dissolved solids of 5.867 g/kg. Only the open-air Gensen-buro (source bath) is supplied directly by unheated, unfiltered spring water on a flow-through basis, letting bathers experience its faint yellowish cloudiness firsthand; the indoor baths and other tubs use heated, circulated and disinfected water, so the facility as a whole offers flow-through bathing in only part of its baths, not throughout.

The bathing area includes a rustic rock-lined open-air bath, a shallow reclining bath where visitors can stretch out their legs, a seated soaking bath, and a sauna heated to around 80°C. The on-site restaurant Hana no Mai serves local specialties such as gohei-mochi rice cakes and Toei-grown chicken dishes, while a tatami-matted lounge, a souvenir shop, and coin-operated massage chairs round out the amenities. Admission is 800 yen for adults and 350 yen for children (ages 3 through elementary school), with opening hours from 10:00 to 21:00 (last entry 20:00) and closures on Wednesdays (open on public holidays). Free parking is available for 180 vehicles.