Some places you visit on the road leave you thinking, “I may never come here again.”
I travel for saunas by the creed of ichigo ichie, once in a lifetime, so it’s not an unusual feeling for me. If anything, that’s exactly why I savor that one visit with everything I’ve got. But life is a strange thing. Sometimes you get pulled back to a place you thought you’d never see again. As if reeled in by some invisible force.
After a morning sauna at Hotel Nampuro in Shimabara, bathed in the sunrise coming up over the Ariake Sea, I gripped the wheel of my rental car and headed for Saga Prefecture.
The instant I crossed the border into Saga, my mood lifted for some reason, and I felt energy welling up from deep inside. I know why. Saga is a place packed with memories for me, and it’s also one of the best regions in Japan when it comes to saunas and onsen. It has famous springs, famous water and famous saunas. Just driving on Saga’s roads, my body starts expecting, all on its own, that something good is about to happen.
A sign by the road came into view: The Town Where You Can See the Moon’s Pull. The Ariake Sea that spreads out before Tara Town has the greatest tidal range in Japan, up to 6 m (20 ft), they say. The tides are caused by the moon’s gravity. In other words, in this town you can actually see the pull of the moon with your own eyes. What a romantic slogan.
And in this town lies my destination: Kanigoten Ariakekai-no-Yu.
When I visited before, I thought, “Geographically speaking, I may never come here again.” Yet drawn by that pull, here I was again. So when I parked the car, a quiet wave of emotion rose up from deep in my chest.
Savoring the joy of coming back, I checked in and headed for the main bathhouse. It was noon. At this hour only day visitors are around, and there were just two of us in the bath, me included. Practically a private session.
Kanigoten Ariakekai-no-Yu is by no means a big place. If anything, it’s very compact. One indoor onsen bath, one sauna, one cold plunge, five chairs for cooling off in the open air. None of the everything-and-the-kitchen-sink you get at a super sento. But every single piece of it is first-rate.
The ultimate bathing routine is beautifully simple. Heat up in the gorgeous Gravity Sauna, worth trying at least once if you love saunas. Sink into the cold plunge of natural water filtered through the Mount Tara range, one step at a time down the stairs. Then, a few steps away, surrender yourself to an infinity chair and cool off in the open air to your heart’s content, gazing out over the Ariake Sea. That’s it. I’ve just told you everything, but this simple flow packs devastating power.
Right then. Let’s begin.
I washed up and first soaked in the onsen. The indoor bath is filled with Taradake Onsen water. Clear, colorless and easygoing, a gentle water with no quirks. Beyond the big windows, the Ariake Sea stretches out.
A view of the sea brings peace to the heart. Even if something’s weighing on you, just staring blankly at the sea, you find yourself feeling calm and positive before you know it. Add an onsen and a sauna to that, and you could fairly call it the richest time of your life.
Once the onsen had soothed me thoroughly, it was time to be wrapped in fierce heat.
Who’d have thought the day would come when I’d open this sauna door again? I walked in grinning ear to ear. And instantly, just as before, its beauty stole my heart. Skilled craftsmen carved this sauna by hand, piece by piece, from precious spruce said to be 350 to 400 years old. The walls and ceiling undulate in soft curves. There are almost no straight lines. It has a strange sense of embrace, as if you’ve crawled inside a giant tree.
The front of the sauna is all glass, with the whole Ariake Sea laid out beyond it. Should I look at the sea, or at the sculpted room? A far too luxurious dilemma. My eyes went back and forth again and again.
And what impressed me all over again was the glass. For a window this big, there’s not a single smudge or water spot. The Ariake Sea looks crystal clear, as if there were no window at all. Plenty of saunas and onsen across Japan sell themselves on the view. But more than a few have the all-important window clouded white with mineral spots, and you want to shout, “So close!” Polishing this huge window every day must take serious effort. Attention to detail like this, I think, is what real quality is.
I heated my body to the limit and stepped out of the sauna. At last, time to sink into natural water filtered by Mount Tara.
The cold plunge sits on a terrace facing the sea. You walk down stairs into it from ground level, and with each step the cold water climbs from your ankles to your knees, your waist, your chest. It’s about 150 cm (5 ft) at the deepest point, so you can stand submerged right up to your shoulders. The water must be around 14–15°C (57–59°F). Pretty cold. But more than the cold, it’s the softness and freshness of the water that wraps around your whole body.
And best of all, the surface of the water is at eye level, with the Ariake Sea continuing beyond it. You fall under the illusion that you’re floating right in the Ariake Sea itself. That feeling just won’t let me out of the cold plunge. After cooling down for a while, I finally climbed the stairs and let a chair take my full weight.
From there, I lost track of time. Less cooling off in the open air, more sunbathing. Early October, the very best season of the year for cooling off in the open air. The Ariake Sea in front of me. A cloudless blue sky straight above. Only two of us in the bath, me included, and nothing at all to get in the way of totonou (the deep, clear-headed calm that comes after cycling through sauna, the cold plunge and cooling off in the open air). With every condition lined up like this, it’s harder to stop cooling off than to keep going.
No one rushing me, no glancing at the clock, just waiting for a signal to come from inside myself. Is there any more luxurious way to spend time in this day and age? In daily life, the next appointment, the next job, the next message are always hurrying me along. But here, what to do next is decided by none other than my own body.
After that, I mindlessly repeated the cycle: the same beautiful sauna, the natural-water cold plunge, and cooling off in the open air as one with the Ariake Sea. By the time I left the bath, two hours had passed.
I will definitely come back here. With that promise to myself, I said goodbye to Kanigoten Ariakekai-no-Yu.
My stomach, emptied out by the sauna, was demanding food. I slipped into a set-meal diner nearby and feasted on delicious sashimi. The kind of flavor that makes you feel alive.
Belly full, I drove north through Saga Prefecture, mile after mile. With the Ariake Sea behind me, this time I was heading for the Genkai Sea. My next destination was Yobuko in Karatsu City. It was a few months ago that I learned this town had a truly unique sauna. A sauna modeled on a whale, a sauna modeled on Yobuko’s famous squid, a kiln sauna built with bricks once used in Karatsu ware kilns, and a cold plunge made from an actual live squid tank. Just reading the descriptions made me laugh, they’re that one-of-a-kind, and the place has caught the attention of sauna lovers all over Japan.
Its name is JIN6 Sauna.
