10-2 Hot Spring in Japan

Onsen is Japanese word describing Hot Springs, and hot water gush out from the grand with several kinds of minerals. So when you take an Onsen, you would take several good effects. There are more than three thousand Onsen in Japan and a lot of Japanese love taking it.

There are a lot of reasons that Onsen is loved by Japanese aren't only comfortable, but also a lot of Samurais went for a hot-spring cure at the middle ages and some famous ancient literatures had the information about it.

On this page, I would like to write about Onsen (Hot-Spring), please check it out.

The kinds of Onsen and the Effects

Taking Onsen has several kinds of good effect for our body. Especially, the hot-spring cure has been so famous since old ages in Japan, and the effects depend on the minerals and the quantities. Formerly some Samurais took the effects of the Onsen for their cures, therefore we can gets same effects of Onsen as them. Some of the Onsen has good effects for our skins keeping beauty and it makes women feel glad. So it's a one of the way to research the effects of the Onsen before your visit.

I hope the below table might help you to check the effects. When you'll check your Onsen, please refer it that is written by kinds of the effects.

KindsEffectsComments
Chloride Spring Chronic skin disease, Skin burn, Incised wound, Anemia, Menstrual disorder, Chronic women's disease The salt sticks on our skin and it stops our sweet from evaporating, it affects our body keeping heat in.
Chloride Hydrogen Carbonate Spring Chronic skin disease, Diabetes, Gout, Skin burn, Incised wound, The spring clean up our grease and secretions on our skin, it makes our smooth skin. So, we call it "Beauty's Spring".
Sulfate Spring Chronic skin disease, High blood pressures, Diabetes, Gout, Skin burn, Incised wound, Menstrual disorder, Chronic women's disease This Onsen usually affects our incised wounds and skin bourns, so we call it "Incised Wound Spring".
Simple spring Arteriosclerosis, High blood pressure, Chronic skin disease, Diabetes, Skin burn, incised wound, Menstrual Disorder, Chronic women's disease The springs are general hot springs and don't stimulate our body so strong.
Sulfur spring Arteriosclerosis, High blood pressure, Chronic skin disease, Diabetes, Gout, Menstrual Disorder, Chronic women's disease We can smell the hydrogen sulfide that is special smell likes rotten egg at the spring. After oxidized we can fine some yellow or white precipitates in the spring.
Spring including iron Chronic skin disease, Anemia, Menstrual Disorder, Chronic women's disease The color of water is transparent and colorless at gushing out, but finally the color changes to dark brown after oxidized.
Acid spring Chronic skin disease, Diabetes, Incised wound, Anemia, Chronic women's disease The spring is so uncommon in other countries except Japan, but we can find a lot of the acid springs all over Japan.
Carbon dioxide spring Arteriosclerosis, High blood pressure, Skin burn, Incised wound We would get some comfortable stimulus by the carbon dioxide gas during taking the Onsen, so we call it "Bubble spring".
Radioactive spring Arteriosclerosis, High blood pressure, Chronic skin disease, Diabetes, Gout, Chronic women's disease We call the spring "Gout Spring" from since early time, because the Onsen affects urine and uric acid would be reduced in our body. And don't worry about the radioactivity in the spring, they vaporizes into the air after gushing out.

In additionally, recovering from our Fatigue, Lumbago, Muscle pain, Neuralgia, Arthralgia, Shoulder pain, Sensitivity to the cold, Hemorrhoids, Bruise and Sprain are the effects by every Onsen.

How do you think about Onsen? Onsen have a lot of effects, so I hope that you agree the fact that some wounded Samurai visited there since old ages. If you have any problems on your body, please try any Onsen like the Samurais.

Items to go Onsen with

What items should we bring to go Onsen with? Japanese usually bring big towel, small towel, soap, shampoo and rinse to Onsen. But at some Onsen attached with Ryokan, which is Japanese inn, we might borrow them.

And the most important item is the small towel in all of the items. We use it to wash our body before taking Onsen, to wipe away our water after taking Onsen, and more than anything else it would hide our important part of our body.

How to take Onsen

At this part, I would like to write the way to take Onsen. Please read the below with the information of manners taking Onsen that I wrote next.

  1. After arrive at Onsen, it's important to take a rest for one hour except something to eat and drink. Especially some alcohol is so dangerous.
  2. At dressing room. We are required to take off our every clothes and put our clothes into the locker. If the locker has any keys, we have to bring the key to Onsen.
  3. And then we just bring our shampoo and rinse and soap and small towel to Onsen from the dressing room. The time, it's better to hide our body by the small towels.
  4. At first, wash our head and body. If there are some showers, we can use it. But if there are no showers, we need to use a pail to wash our body with the hot water of the spring.
  5. Before taking an Onsen, we need to pour the hot water over our body. It's very important to accustom our body temperature to the hot spring's one and it also cleans our body. We call it "Kake-Yu". At beginning, we could pour on from our foots to our body. It would be enough warming up to pour from ten times to twenty times. Please don't forget our head especially winter season and/or really hot spring.
  6. After pouring, we could take the Onsen slowly without our towel. At that time, Hanshin-Yoku is the best way. Hanshin-Yoku is one of the reasonable ways to have a bath and we just bathe the half part of our body in the bath. It's necessary for somebody who has some problem on his/her heart or lungs.
  7. After taking Onsen, we would be required to wipe away our water on our body with our small towel. After Finished dripping, we can go the dressing room.
  8. Don't forget to drink something after putting on our clothes. It's good for our body.

Manners at Onsen

I would like to the bad manners on the below list to take an Onsen. Please read it and enjoy with everybody.

Famous Onsen

Finally, I would like to draw Japanese map with some famous Onsen.

Noboribetsu, Beppu, Kusatsu, Arima and Dogo would be the best five Onsen by their history and name recognitions.

The locations of the Onsen are drawn on the below Japanese map. If you'll visit any places close to the Onsens, please try the Onsen. At that time, you wouldn't only enjoy the Japanese cultures but also your strains of your long journey would be relieved your fatigue.

HotSpring

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