To my pleasant surprise, one of my very good friends from university got a job in Tokyo and moved here in the beginning of fall. She moved to an area north of central Tokyo called Kichijoji, a quaint neighborhood famous for its big, beautiful park as well as its abundance of places to shop and eat.
On a gorgeous Friday in autumn, my friend invited me to try an onsen called Utsukushi No Yu, or Beautiful Springs. After a pleasant hour-long journey by train to the Kichijoji area, I arrived at Takaido station on the Keio Inokashira line. After meeting up and getting lost for a little while, my friend and I finally found the place we were looking for.
Utsukushi No Yu is located inside a humongous fitness club and seemed to be overrun by sprightly old ladies. After placing your shoes in a special locker and buying a ticket for bathing at a complicated vending machine, you are given another locker in which to place your things and change. The locker room for the onsen and the gym are the same, so it is a pretty busy place. I have to admit that I felt a little overwhelmed when I first stepped inside and had to start dodging people hurrying to get to their Pilates class. Thusfar, it had not been the most tranquil of onsen experiences.
The entrance to the bath is a simple sliding door. Upon opening it, a steam cloud puffs into your face and the sound of bathers chatting happily entices you to come in. The bathing facilities are quite large, and I think that I would have been really uncomfortable had I been alone. There are six or seven different types of baths to choose from, and after washing off with the provided shampoo and soap, you are ready to hop in to any one of them. My friend and I tried the indoor bath first. It was a comfortable temperature and a very spacious tub. The water throughout the baths had a slightly brown hue to it, and the extremely high sodium content makes this one of the saltiest onsens I have ever been to. With low alkaline levels, this onsen is particularly good for physical ailments of the body such as muscle pain or joint stiffness which might explain why my friend and I were the only ones under 50 years old.
Soaking in the hot outdoor bath under a crisp and azure autumn sky while red and yellow leaves float gracefully down from the trees above was such a relaxing feeling.
Utsukushi No Yu is typically the kind of onsen I try to avoid when I am alone. I tend to go to older and stinker springs because of the "local" ambiance that comes with them, but every now and then it is good to get away from what you are used to. This onsen was gorgeous and provided a wonderful atmosphere to catch up while soaking the aches and pains of life away. For 900 yen, you get a wide variety of baths to try, shampoo, soap, and a pretty decent powder room. I wouldn't mind coming here again, provided that someone comes with me!
The friends who bathe together stay together!!!
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