Dai Onsen Yoshinoya Ryokan

Yoshinoya Ryokan is a small toji (hot-spring cure) inn in Dai Onsen, a valley hamlet of wooden lodgings strung along the Dai River in Hanamaki City, Iwate Prefecture. Legend credits the warrior Sakanoue no Tamuramaro with discovering these waters some 1,200 years ago, though the spa is thought to have actually opened in the fourteenth century, and lords of the Nanbu domain visited it repeatedly. Although it lies only about one kilometre west of Hanamaki Onsen, Dai Onsen is a separate resort divided from those large hotels by a ridge, and its winding lane of timber inns preserves a nostalgic old-Japan atmosphere. Yoshinoya has just ten guest rooms and is known as a plain, affordable place to experience the toji tradition.

The water is a sodium chloride-sulfate spring emerging at 76 degrees Celsius with a pH of 8.0. It is clear and colourless yet carries a hydrogen-sulfide scent and a salty taste. The inn keeps the intake from the source at a constant rate so that fresh water is always filling the tub, delivering genuine free-flowing spring water. Because the source is so hot, natural mountain water is added to temper it, but the water is never reheated, recirculated or chlorinated. Bath temperatures generally run a bracing 42 to 44 degrees.

Bathing is in a single traditional wood-lined indoor tub for men and another for women; there is no open-air bath and no private bath. Day visitors may bathe from 10:00 to 21:00 for 300 yen per adult. Overnight rates are modest, starting at 4,400 yen room-only, 5,400 yen with breakfast and 6,900 yen with two meals per person for two sharing a room, tax included. Meals of matsutake mushroom broth, mountain vegetables and seafood are served home-style in the guest room. Free parking for twenty cars and inn-wide Wi-Fi are available.