Umegashima Onsen Omoide no Yado Yunoshimakan

Yunoshimakan is a six-room inn standing at the very end of the road in Umegashima Onsen, a spring that rises at about 900 meters above sea level in the headwaters of the Abe River, in the northernmost reaches of Aoi Ward, Shizuoka City. Umegashima Onsen is said to have been opened some 1,700 years ago in the era of Emperor Ojin, and because it welled up in a mountain hamlet that prospered from gold mining it was also called the Golden Spring. It later became known as a hidden bath of the warlord Takeda Shingen and as a spring associated with Tokugawa Ieyasu. The inn sits roughly 50 kilometers and about 90 minutes by car from JR Shizuoka Station, deep in the southern foothills of the Southern Alps.

The water is a simple sulfur spring with a strongly alkaline pH of 9.2. It is clear and colorless, carrying a faint scent of sulfur and a smooth, lotion-like slipperiness that has earned it a reputation as a beauty bath. Because the source temperature is a modest 39 degrees Celsius, water piped from the shared source managed by Shizuoka City is warmed to bathing temperature, then supplied free-flowing with no added water and no recirculation. The posted benefits include neuralgia, muscle and joint pain, frozen shoulder, poor circulation and chronic skin conditions.

Bathing is in four private baths collectively named Fu-Rin-Ka-Zan after Takeda Shingen's battle standard: Fu no Yu, a tatami-floored room with an iron goemon tub; Rin no Yu, scented with hinoki cypress; Ka no Yu, set beside a sunken hearth; and Yama no Yu, a cave bath built of rough stone. All four are free for overnight guests. The guest rooms were renovated in a modern Japanese style in 2023, and meals feature local mountain produce such as Suruga shamo chicken and Abe wasabi. Rooms run roughly 12,000 to 19,000 yen per person per night with two meals, plus a 150 yen bathing tax, and parking is free for ten cars. Day-trip bathing is accepted, but no rates or hours are published, so calling ahead is essential.