Semboku, Akita (秋田県仙北市) – Natsuse Onsen Miyakowasure (夏瀬温泉 都わすれ) private rental bath (貸切温泉露天風呂)

Semboku, Akita (秋田県仙北市) – Natsuse Onsen Miyakowasure (夏瀬温泉 都わすれ) private rental bath (貸切温泉露天風呂)

So, we reserved the private bath, the Kashkiri Buro at Natsu Onen Mako. It’s behind this uh place here. This is the main courtyard area. You can see that there are beautiful hydrangeas right here of blue and yellow colors. This is the inner courtyard of Natsu Onsen Makoas in Akita Prefecture near Lake Tazawa. So anyways, uh so let’s take a look here. It does say Natsu Onsen. This is uh genen kake nagashi meaning it is straight from the source and not recirculated free flowing of course. Uh let me okay surrounded by nature as you can see takes uh about 10 15 minutes on a gravel road to get here if if coming by the car. So this is the rental bath. So, you can just flip this around. If it’s not being used, um, it means it’s open. If you flip it over, it means it’s being used, currently in using in the Japanese way. Um, but you do have to reserve uh through the front desk. So, it’s not just whoever’s wants to use it and if it’s not occupied, you can use it. It doesn’t work like that here, but it is free of charge to people who would like to partake. Um the thing you’ll notice is that there is no shower or towels here. So you would either go to the dio the communal bath which is right next door um gender segregated of course or uh you can bring your towel from your room but um same thing for the shower. It’s customary. It’s it’s actually mandated by Japanese customs to uh wash yourself thoroughly before entering into the bath. So you can see Natsu saysen makoas sign and uh wow this uh the water this is sort of like a jacuzzi either that or there’s just a lot of water coming out. Wow. Do they have it coming out like a bubble bath? I don’t know. Or is there really strong thermal action going? The other thing worth uh pointing out here is that um yeah, you can see the uh offsprings coming down from the rock, but I think it’s also being fed from below. I think those are jets. Jacuzzi’s jets, which is different from what’s in our our room. Uh, onsen kakeu. This is where you would uh pour it over your body because maybe it’s a little too hot and you want to kind of heat up, warm up your body before you if you get shocked by um things that are a little too hot. And then this is uh interesting tuck it. Uh this is a a bath where it’s like a shower bath and um what what what it’s intended to do is to have it hit your shoulders. So it’s almost like a massage uh uh water massage action. So you sit here and then uh yeah, you just have it slow down and hit your uh hit your neck and shoulders. I guess it’s uh therapeutic in that way. Although uh I haven’t tried it myself and I’m I actually don’t have neck head and shoulder problems. So um I don’t know that I I’ll notice any difference anyway. So it is an open air. So if the sun is coming out strongly uh then you have kind of these uh rice patty worker style um hats. Uh so this is the uh oh the um communal bath. The dioou is actually um indoors as far as I know. I I I took a peek. I didn’t spend too much time in there. Um this is open air. I will say that the view of of from the bath in our room is superior to this, but this is a quite the different experience as well. Okay.

We paid a visit to the Kashikiri Onsen Rotenburo (貸切温泉露天風呂 – private rental bath) that guests can rent for private use at Natsuse Onsen Miyakowasure (夏瀬温泉 都わすれ), a 10-room luxury onsen ryokan located in Semboku, Akita, Japan (秋田県仙北市). While impressive, it’s jacuzzi-style, which isn’t our favorite. The Onsen is “gensen kakenagashi” (源泉かけ流し – straight from the source, free flowing and never recirculated), and no water is added to cool down the onsen, which means the spring is not diluted in any way.