「Canal Resort」 Experience Story

I was still agonizing over my plans for the final day right up until that morning. One thing was settled: I'd be leaving Nagoya after midday. What I was really wrestling with was which sauna to visit in the morning. In the end, two nights and three days simply weren't enough. I still had about five places I wanted to go. I wanted to hit them all, but that was impossible, so I had to make a call. What to sacrifice, what to gain — faced with that ultimate choice, I narrowed it down to two destinations. Canal Resort was one of them. Since I was fitting two facilities into a single morning, this was a full-on blitz visit. Thirty minutes on the clock. I was going to squeeze every drop of enjoyment out of that sauna in the time I had. I passed through the resort-style entrance, checked in, rented a towel, and headed for the large communal bath. The restaurant and other facilities looked impressively well-stocked, and even in the morning the place was buzzing with guests. It seemed like exactly the kind of spot you'd bring a partner or friends for a fun day out. But today, I had no time for any of that. My one and only target was the sauna. I hustled to the men's bath, stripped in record time, and got in. I cleaned up, then eased into the outdoor natural hot spring. It was a brief soak, but I made a point of feeling what the facility had to offer. Carbonated baths are more or less the same wherever you go, but a proper onsen has something you can only get in that specific place — so I wasn't skipping it. Once my body was warmed through, I headed for the sauna room. Realistically, I only had time for one set. I normally do at least three, but I opened that sauna door ready to pour everything into a single round. The moment I stepped inside, the sheer size of the room stopped me in my tracks. It was spacious enough to host a small stand-up comedy show. In the center stood two large iki stoves pumping out serious heat. The temperature read 100°C. On top of that, an automatic löyly fires off aromatic mist every ten to fifteen minutes, cranking up the humidity and making it even hotter. This sauna had some real punch to it. I could feel my sluggish morning body slowly waking up under the heat. After about ten minutes of sweating it out, I moved to the outdoor cold plunge. There were two cold plunge baths — one is Canal Resort's signature attraction: the swimmable cold plunge. The other was a carbonated cold bath. I went straight into the swimmable one without a second thought. The depth is 2 meters, so your feet don't touch the bottom. It's big enough for at least fifteen people. I dunked my head under, rolled onto my back, and floated there, drifting peacefully. It felt incredible. I don't think I'd ever experienced a cold plunge with this much sense of freedom. That said, the water was 13°C, so I couldn't linger forever. I made my way along the edge of the pool and climbed out. The carbonated cold bath, I couldn't bring myself to enter. It has a bitter history for me. Once, at a facility called Suishin in Matsui-Yamate, Kyoto, I got into a 13°C carbonated cold bath. The intense pain in my nether regions was something I've never been able to forget. Carbonated cold baths and the male anatomy simply do not mix. That is my firm conclusion. A brief tangent aside — I fully savored Canal Resort's enormous cold plunge, and although it was just one set, my morning sauna session was complete. Even in a single set, I was able to get a genuine feel for the place, and that matters a lot. There's a world of difference between looking at photos and actually experiencing something yourself. Part of me wanted to stay longer, but my next destination was waiting, so I left the facility with tears in my eyes. The next place would be my final sauna in Nagoya. That facility is Yunoya Natural Hot Spring Yukichiro.