Jubei no Yado / Jubei no Yu

Located in Ebino, the westernmost city of Miyazaki Prefecture, this hot spring inn stands in the Kyomachi Onsen district, a spa town tucked into a basin between Kumamoto and Kagoshima. Kyomachi Onsen is said to have opened in the late Taisho era, and in the early Showa period it was visited by the wandering haiku poet Santoka Taneda. Jubei no Yado shares its grounds with the day-use bathhouse Jubei no Yu and the noodle restaurant Jubei Udon Ebino Kyomachi, forming a small hot spring complex about five minutes by car from the Ebino IC on the Kyushu Expressway.

The spring, named Jubei Onsen, is a sodium bicarbonate, sulfate and chloride spring, classified as hypotonic, weakly alkaline and hot, with a source temperature listed by the inn at 67.4 degrees Celsius. Water drawn from a well 460 meters deep is delivered free-flowing to every bath without recirculation. Because it combines the three mineral groups most associated with skin-softening waters in Japan, it is known locally as a beauty bath, offering both a cleansing effect and lasting warmth. The waters are said to help with neuralgia, muscle and joint pain, frozen shoulder, motor paralysis, stiffness, chronic digestive complaints, hemorrhoids, poor circulation, convalescence, fatigue and general health.

The day-use bathhouse Jubei no Yu offers a large indoor bath, an open-air rock bath, a cypress open-air bath, a steam bath, and three private open-air baths available by reservation. A free foot bath open to anyone sits at one corner of the car park. Day bathing runs from 9:00 to 23:00 (last entry 22:30) at 550 yen for adults, 400 yen for junior high students, 350 yen for children aged four through elementary school, and free for infants. The inn itself has just six guest rooms, three on the first floor with indoor open-air baths and three on the second floor with private open-air baths. Free parking is available for 85 vehicles.