Sekai Isan No Kakure Yado Kajitsu No Mori

Every one of the 37 rooms at this hotel in Ichinoseki, near Hiraizumi, has its own hinoki bath, kept flowing fresh straight from the source: a pale yellow, faintly salty water that feels soft on the skin and keeps you warm well after you step out. Rooms on the ground floor add a private open-air tub too, no two quite the same, from a Shigaraki-ware basin to a marble tub to one shaped like a coffee cup. Rooms on the upper floors look out over Mount Tabashine and the forest instead. The hotel sits among fruit orchards, easygoing rather than formal, with a small coffee lounge that plays jazz and a corner selling local crafts like Nanbu ironware.