Maga Onsen Maga Onsenkan

A small public bathhouse in the Maga Onsen area of Okayama, tucked between a river and a steep hillside. The hot spring water wells up naturally through the bath floor, you're bathing directly over the source. The building has a separate men's and women's bath, plus a mixed indoor bath called Makuyu (幕湯) that is the reason most people come. The spring composition is sodium-bicarbonate (so the water is soft and gentle), and the whole place has the modest, no-fuss atmosphere of a proper local bathhouse that's been doing its job for a long time.