大正湯温泉

Bathing: 500 yen This hot spring bathhouse in Hanazono, Otaru City, has probably been around for a long time. It was 2:10 PM on a Sunday, 10 minutes after opening, but there were already about 10 customers, mostly locals. The water is a simple cold mineral spring, and the facility doesn't overly emphasize its status as a hot spring bathhouse, which is nice. There's a hot spring sign. An older woman at the front desk adds a touch of charm. There are hot and medium-temperature baths, a cold pool in the back, and a mist sauna. The faucets are arranged in a complicated way. The shower pressure is quite weak and lukewarm. It's old and showing signs of aging, but it's not a problem. The hot spring is 44°C, and the medium temperature is 42°C. The hotter water has a distinct earthy mineral scent, different from the real water. It doesn't feel smooth or anything, but you can still get the feeling that it's a mineral spring. The chlorine taste is faint and not at all noticeable. The pool is ridiculously huge, and since it's winter, no one was in it, which felt pointless. The sauna wasn't too hot, either.

This is a natural hot spring. Both the high-temperature bath and the large medium-temperature bath use natural hot spring water. The medium-temperature bath is divided into a shallow and a deep section. The spring water is formerly known as a cold mineral spring, a hypotonic neutral cold mineral spring. The water temperature is 14.5 degrees Celsius and the pH is 6.5. It is colorless, clear, odorless, and tasteless. The pH of 6.5 is a distinctive feature. Although the water is pumped, the water volume is said to be abundant. Unusually for a public bath in Otaru, the shared waiting room in front of the counter is spacious. Judging from the atmosphere, it seems they may have made the changing room smaller to expand the waiting room. The ceiling is painted with a blue sky and two seagulls flying. The posters also have a touch of humor. The upper floor seems to be accommodation; the Japanese style is so prominent that I initially thought it was a sign for a family bath.

This is a long-loved public bath in Otaru. There are two main baths, one high-temperature and one medium-temperature, and the temperature doesn't seem to differ much between them. I tried the steam sauna at 44℃ for about 30 minutes, but I didn't sweat at all, so I gave up.😅 After warming up thoroughly in the high-temperature bath, I cooled down in the adjacent pool.🙂 Some children who arrived later were having a blast in the pool, even though it's winter. I'm sure these children will look back on this as a fond memory when they grow up. Taisho-yu was very warming.🤗

August 17, 2022 I visited to soothe the fatigue of a long sea voyage. It seems the first floor of the three-story building is a shop, and the upper floors are a guesthouse. It has a front desk style, and the changing room ceiling is sky blue with seagulls flying. The floor seems to be made of a rattan-patterned sheet material. The bathroom has a waterfall shower, a medium-temperature bath at around 40°C, a hot bath at around 43°C, and a steam sauna. The water used seems to be 14.5°C cold spring water. It feels like heated groundwater.

Taisho-yu is a historic local bathhouse in Otaru that was the first to use hot spring water ♨️ Strictly speaking, it's a hot spring that contains more metasilicic acid than the regulated amount under the Hot Spring Law When you bathe, you can definitely smell the distinctive scent of hot spring water Thanks to the metasilicic acid, your skin feels incredibly smooth after bathing Plus, today was a lucky day as I got to use the bath with the 10-meter pool Alternating between hot and cold baths felt amazing. It was the best! 😍💓💓