We were really looking forward to our trip to Kinosaki onsen. It’s a small hot spring town with a lovely main street in the middle of which flows a stream channelled within stone walls. You are supposed to visit as many of the town’s bath houses as possible and, at least in the summer, walk from place to place wearing a Yukata. Winter is best time to enjoy an even more picturesque Kinosaki under the snow and a delicious crab menu.

Street of kinosaki onsen

The only decent pic we had of Kinosaki onsen, it's actually much better than that!

I was super proud to have booked both the ryokan stay and the train tickets online from websites in Japanese. What’s more, we never book train tickets. For things to be perfect, I wished very hard that I could see Kinosaki under the snow but “Beware what you wish for!”, as they say. It snowed so hard last Friday that on Saturday hardly any trains were running in the Kinosaki area – ours was cancelled – and by the time I had discussed the whole matter with the owner of the ryokan over the phone all buses to Kinosaki were fully booked.

Most frustrating first world problem ever: we had to cancel a holiday. Sigh…

I imposed a consolatory visit to Mister Donuts and decided that I still wanted my bath! I could have just had one at home, but there’s something special about carelessly walking in the nude amid tens of strangers by a 10C temperature to go from bath to bath.

We did a quick Google search and made quite a cool discovery. “Hey! There’s a super sento not far from home. Actually, it is at walking distance from home!” A sento is strictly a public bath, that is to say its water is not coming from a hot spring like in onsens, but it fits the bill just fine as far as we’re concerned. A super sento is simply a very big sento with loads of different baths. The one we went to is called the Suishun (水春). You can click on the pic below to view their website.

Suishun sento Osaka

So we walked 30 mins to discover the Suishun super sento tucked away on the second floor of a massive entertainment complex with video games, bowing alleys, karaoke and so on. Quite a contrast with the traditional Kinosaki Onsen! We’re in the realm of good time family fun and its focus on convenience. We smiled at the fact there is a TV in the sauna and in the outside bathing area. After our bath, we got our bottle of fresh milk from a vending machine, received a ten min massage by a massage chair, and ordered a meal using a touch screen. We also heard announcements for the departure of a (free) shuttle bus going… to our neighbourhood. Perfect! No need to wake up from our deep state of relaxation to walk back home.

Feeling much better and pretty determined to become regulars of the Suishun :)