Kyuujitsuyu休日湯

About

A day-use bathing facility inside "Kyujitsu Building," a complex in Jozankei, Sapporo. Adjacent to "Jozankei Daiichi Hotel Suizantei," it uses a sodium chloride spring that blends several sources gushing naturally from the bed of the Toyohira River. The source averages about 69°C and is kept as close to free-flowing as possible.

The indoor bath is simple, with a single main tub, but the outdoor area offers the "Sanshin-yoku no Yu," where you can move between full-body, half-body, and quarter-body bathing; the "Asayu," a reclining bath set at a 12.8-degree incline; and even an electric bath. At the center of the sauna, in front of the stove, sits the "Nushi," a ceramic creature resembling a beckoning cat. Though the room is a spacious 25 square meters, capacity is deliberately limited to 15 people (not counting the Nushi), creating a comfortable sense of distance. In addition to auto-löyly from two stoves, it uses aroma water distilled in-house from plants picked at a nearby herb garden.

The cold bath, named "Abiru Mizuburo R18," is limited to guests aged 18 and over: water drips from natural black silica ore from Kaminokuni, Hokkaido, while mist falls from the ceiling. In the men's bath, the tub deepens in six steps from 24 cm to about 130 cm, so you can choose within a single bath anything from easing in at the shallows to sinking up to your shoulders. The building also houses a small art museum set along a 29-meter corridor.