Pension Orange Peco

This small, seven-room family-run pension in Norikura Kogen has a single hand-built outdoor onsen bath: a koyamaki (高野槇) cypress tub. The water is a milky white natural spring, warmed and kept flowing rather than recirculated. It's a kashikiri (貸切) bath, booked for one family or group at a time rather than shared with the rest of the house. The pension sits on a birch-forested hillside. By day the bath looks toward Mt. Norikura through the trees, and at night it opens onto a wide, dark sky, which is where the name Hoshi-no-Yado (星の宿), "star lodge," comes from.