Nishi-no-Miyabi Tokiwa

This Yuda Onsen ryokan runs five separate baths split by gender, one open-air and two indoor for men, one open-air and one indoor for women, and the split swaps between men and women each morning. The men's open-air bath, named for the loyalist samurai who gathered here on the eve of the Meiji Restoration, sits away from the main bathhouse, so you need to get dressed to walk over. One of the indoor baths is styled after the historical Ouchi lords who once ruled Yamaguchi, and the women's indoor bath uses stone brought over from China, tied to a local legend that the Tang-dynasty beauty Yang Guifei once drifted ashore nearby. The water itself is a mild alkaline spring, soft on the skin. A few of the upper-floor and suite-grade rooms have their own open-air tub fed by the real source water, and the rest of the rooms have their own bath too, just running on tap water. Day-use bathing is open to non-guests, though there is no sauna or private family bath. The building keeps a retro, Showa-era feel, and the ryokan is best known for its nightly proprietress theater, an elderly innkeeper performing song, dance and magic for guests, sometimes joined by local university students on taiko drums.