Hotel Mori-no-kaze Oushuku

Hotel Mori-no-kaze Oushuku is a large resort hotel at Oshuku Onsen, and its open-air baths sit up on the building in a rare "sky" rotenburo style, looking out over the Shizukuishi basin toward Mount Iwate and Akita-Komagatake. There's a Japanese-style bath and a Western-style bath, each with an indoor and an open-air side, and the two swap between men and women in the morning and evening. A dry sauna sits off the indoor baths. Two private baths, one lined with rock and one shaped like a jar, can be booked separately by reservation. The alkaline spring water is soft on the skin. Guests in the Shikisai rooms and the Kaen suite get their own bath, in cypress, ceramic, or stone jar, filled from the source. The hotel itself looks like a European castle on a hill above the town, and its garden is lit up at night.