Kobo Daishi's spring
Hoshi Onsen is a single inn in a valley at about 800 m near the Mikuni Pass in Minakami. The spring's age is unknown but thought to be around 1,200 years; the inn's site attributes its discovery to the travelling priest Kobo Daishi (Kukai), which is why the great bath is called Hoshi-no-yu, 'the priest's bath'. The inn, Chojukan, opened in 1875. In 1999 Hoshi, with Yujuku and Kawafuru, was designated a National Health Resort.[1][2]
A bath that is its own source
Hoshi-no-yu was built in 1895, a wooden hall in the Rokumeikan style with a row of round-topped windows. Pebbles cover the bath floor and the spring rises between them, untouched by any pipe. The four pools differ a little in temperature depending on where the water comes up. The source is about 43 °C, warm enough to enter as it is, and that is what makes the design possible. Inside the bathhouse, around the pools, are clothes boxes that regulars still use instead of the changing rooms; the inn has long called this the 'Hoshi way'.[1]
A timetable for mixed bathing
Hoshi-no-yu is mixed, but changing rooms are separate and there are women-only hours. The cypress Tamaki-no-yu alternates: women 15:00–20:00, men 20:00–7:00. Choju-no-yu, in a separate building, is women only. The timetable lets people new to konyoku ease in step by step. In the 1980s a Japan National Railways 'Full Moon' poster photographed here, featuring the actors Uehara Ken and Takamine Mieko, made the bath famous nationwide.[1]
Day visits and getting there
Day bathing is limited to Hoshi-no-yu and Choju-no-yu, reception 10:30–13:30 with use until 14:00; closed Wednesdays and over New Year (Wikipedia). The fee could not be confirmed as the official site was unreadable. Town buses run from Jomo-Kogen Station twice in the morning and twice in the afternoon; by car it is about 40 minutes from the Tsukiyono exit. Winters are snowy.[1]
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