Umaji Onsen

Umaji Onsen is a village-run hot spring beside the clear Yasuda River, in the main settlement of Umaji Village in the mountains of eastern Kochi Prefecture. Forest covers roughly 96 percent of the village, home to only about 800 people. It once shipped prized Yanase cedar out along a forest railway, and today it is known nationwide for its yuzu drink, Gokkun Umajimura. The spring opened in 1979 and forms part of Community Center Umaji, a complex with lodging and a restaurant that serves as both village hall and visitor hub.

The water is a sodium bicarbonate and chloride spring, hypotonic, weakly alkaline and classified as a cold mineral spring. An analysis by the Kochi Prefectural Institute of Public Health in 2007 recorded a source temperature of 17.8 degrees Celsius, a pH of 8.03 and a total mineral content of 2,189 milligrams per kilogram, dominated by bicarbonate at 1,227 milligrams and sodium at 572 milligrams. Clear and colourless, it feels soft against the skin and has a local reputation as a beauty bath that leaves bathers smooth afterwards. As with most springs in Kochi, the source emerges well below 25 degrees Celsius and must be heated before it reaches the tubs; the facility does not publicly state whether the water is diluted, recirculated or chemically treated.

Bathing is in separate men's and women's halls, with wide windows opening onto the wooded river valley. A private family bath can be reserved in thirty-minute blocks. Seasonal specialities include a yuzu bath around the winter solstice and a women-only rose bath held on the first of each month. Day-trip bathing runs from 10:00 to 21:00 and costs 600 yen for adults from junior high school age and 300 yen for children aged three through elementary school, with the family bath charged at the same rate. The inn has fifteen rooms across the main and annex buildings, and the restaurant serves local cooking such as amago and ayu river fish from the Yasuda River and inaka-zushi made with yuzu. Parking is free for forty cars.