Takeo Onsen

Takeo Onsen is a hot spring town. It has been in use for some thirteen hundred years, and a number of bathhouses and inns draw on the same water.

The spring is a weakly alkaline simple one, clear and soft to the touch. It holds its heat well and leaves the skin smooth, which is why it has long been called a bath of beautiful skin.

The bathhouses list it as good for tiredness, nerve pain, aching muscles and joints, frozen shoulder, stiffness, bruises and sprains. They also give the usual cautions: it is not for anyone with a malignant tumour, serious heart disease or a bleeding disorder.

Two of the buildings at the centre of the town are Important Cultural Properties: the tower gate at the entrance and the hall behind it known as the Shinkan.

The gate was built in 1915 to a design by Tatsuno Kingo, who was born in Saga and who designed Tokyo Station. It is painted vermilion and built in a form that recalls the palace of the dragon king in the old story, and it has become the sign of the town.

The bathhouse called Motoyu, still in use, was built in 1876 and is said to be the oldest wooden bathhouse building in the country still working as one. It has a high ceiling and wide tubs.

Among the other baths is one cut from marble in the middle of the Edo period as the private bath of the Nabeshima lords of Takeo. The German physician Siebold bathed in it and wrote about it in the account of his journey to Edo. It can still be used, hired by the hour.