Asaya Hotel

Asaya is a large hotel-style ryokan split across two wings, Shuhoukan and Hachibankan, with 192 rooms, every one plumbed with the hotel's own onsen water and some opening onto their own kakenagashi view bath or an attached outdoor tub. The showpiece is the rooftop sky garden bath at the top of Shuhoukan, the highest bath in Kinugawa Onsen, laid out as several small tubs, among them a standing bath honoring a dragon guardian of a nearby gorge and a boat-shaped tub, funayu (舟湯), modeled on the boats used for the river's line-boat rides. Each wing also has its own large indoor bath with a loyly steam sauna and a nano-mist sauna, plus four small reservable private baths in granite, rock, hinoki and red granite tubs, themed around a lucky mallet said to grant wishes. The water is an alkaline hot spring from Asaya's own source, drawn from a stretch of the Kinugawa valley long said locally to be good for healing burns and cuts. Inside, the hotel opens into a tall atrium of chandeliers and glass elevators with a pipe organ playing in the lobby, more grand hotel than quiet mountain inn.