Kawatabi Onsen Fujishima Ryokan

Fujishima Ryokan stands in Kawatabi, Naruko Onsen, Osaki City, Miyagi Prefecture, at the eastern gateway to the Naruko Onsen hot spring district. Kawatabi Onsen spreads across farmland on the left bank of the Eai River, and its waters are said to have been discovered some 1,100 years ago. The spring earned the nickname Kakke Kawatabi for its reputation against beriberi and has drawn cure-seeking bathers for centuries. Fujishima Ryokan was founded in 1596 and has served as the spring keeper of Kawatabi for more than 420 years, with a Japanese garden of roughly 6,600 square meters at its heart.

The water is classified as a sulfur-bearing sodium bicarbonate and sulfate spring, hypotonic, mildly alkaline and high in temperature, known under the older name of sodium bicarbonate and Glauber's salt sulfur spring. The inn lists a source temperature of 58.0 degrees Celsius and a pH of 7.4, while the analysis posted in the bathhouse records 47.6 degrees, pH 7.5 and a total mineral content of 1,052 milligrams per kilogram. The inn draws on its own high-temperature source, called Mayu-no-Yu, together with two cold springs, and supplies the baths entirely from the source with no added water, no heating and no chlorination. The cloudy water shifts from olive to a deep matcha green, carries a clear sulfur aroma with a faint petroleum note, and is held at around 43 degrees.

There are two bathhouses, a large bath and a medium bath, each divided by gender, with no open-air bath. A push-button cascade bath occupies one corner of the bathing room. A family bath is also available and can be used with the day-trip rest plan when free. Day-trip bathing runs year-round from 7:00 to 22:00 with last admission at 21:30, priced at 500 yen for adults and 300 yen for children at the large bath, or 700 and 500 yen at the medium bath, which is stocked with toiletries. The inn has 23 rooms for up to 60 guests, Wi-Fi throughout, and accepts everything from room-only stays to two-meal plans and self-catering cure stays of three nights or more. Parking holds 50 cars and three coaches.