Written on January 2, 2011 by Wouter The new year brings all sorts of celebration to the average Japanese family. It starts with eating osechi, the traditional food consumed at midnight to welcome the new year. Then there are things like watching the first sunrise, going to the shrine to pray for luck on the new year (hatsumode), big sales at pretty much every shop in the country and much much more. For the bath lovers there is also a first: the first bath of the year. There is even a word for it: hatsuburo. Hatsu means first and buro stands bath. Some people settle for a home-heated bath, but many will flock to…

Written on January 11, 2011 by Mischa I have been living in Japan for more than three years and usually we spend Christmas and New Year’s in Europe. This time we stayed in Japan for the first time. What better to do than spend Christmas in an onsen resort: we went to Sujiyu Spa. Sujiyu Spa is a small resort town in Oita prefecture, near the border with Kumamoto. The town is part of Kokonoe-machi, which claims to be the only ski resort on the southern island of Kyushu. We went to six different onsen during our trip:

Written on December 17, 2010 by Mischa Keirin is the Japanese word for track cycling. The Keirin track in Beppu happens to have its own onsen. Today I took a bath there. You can read more about my experience on onsenmeijin.com. I also posted a few photos there.

Written on December 24, 2010 by Mischa Tenkai No Yu is a really nice onsen in the hills of west Oita. We went on a Friday night around 9:15 and it was very busy. All the kazokuburo were occupied all the time we were there. People had to wait to get in. We used the public bath, which was also rather crowded. For pictures and more about Tenkai No Yu go to onsenmeijin.com. This entry was posted in Beppu and tagged bath, experience, friday night, night, oita city, onsen. Bookmark the permalink.