Hot water of Toshimaya Tsukihama

Toshimaya Tsukihama no Yu is a small seaside ryokan at Isohara onsen, on the Ibaraki coast. The two main baths, Hamami-no-yu (浜見の湯) for women and Tsukimi-no-yu (月見の湯) for men, each pair an indoor tub with an open-air one facing the Pacific, the Okita river and the Abukuma mountains. There are also two private open-air baths, Kaigetsu-no-yu (海月の湯) and Tenpi-no-yu (天妃の湯), plus a couple of guest rooms with their own onsen bath, one of them built in stone. The spring itself is a mild sulfur water, the kind valued locally for the skin. The onsen dates back to a well a previous owner dug at the foot of Mt. Tenpi in the early 1930s, which struck the spring by chance. His friend, the poet Noguchi Ujo (野口雨情), wrote it into a local folk song, and that is how Isohara's hot spring became known. The in-house restaurant serves fresh fish landed at the nearby harbors and takes walk-in diners as well as overnight guests, and outside bathers can use the baths during a short day-use window on some weekdays.