Shichikama Onsen Kouya Ryokan

Kouya Ryokan is a small seven-room inn (capacity 28 guests) in Shichikama, Shinonsen Town, Mikata District, Hyogo Prefecture. Shichikama Onsen is one of the three springs that make up the Hamasaka Onsen district, alongside Futatsuichi and Hamasaka, and it is the only place in Hyogo designated as one of Japan's 91 National Health Resort Hot Spring Areas. The place name Shichikama, literally seven cauldrons, is said to come either from the seven salt-boiling cauldrons once used along this former inlet, or from burial mounds scattered across the area that resembled cauldrons.

The water is a sodium-calcium sulfate spring (described on the inn's own site as a Na-Ca-SO4 high-temperature spring) with a source temperature of 50.4C. The supply is plentiful, and the inn states on its official website that the baths are served with free-flowing source water. The spring retains heat unusually well, earning it the local nickname the onsen that makes a kotatsu unnecessary.

Bathing is in separate indoor baths for men and women; there is no open-air bath and no sauna. The bath can be reserved for private use when free, and bathing hours run from 6:00 in the morning until 23:00, with 24-hour access available on request. Guests who want an open-air bath are directed by the inn to Yu-raku-kan, a day-use hot spring about two minutes away on foot. Kouya is also known as a crab sommelier inn, serving matsuba snow crab landed at nearby Hamasaka port in winter and rock oysters and live squid in summer.