Kurokawa Onsen Nyūtō Tegata

黒川温泉 入湯手形 is the wooden bath-hopping pass of Kurokawa Onsen, a small hot-spring village folded into a narrow valley in the Aso mountains of Kumamoto. Kurokawa's defining idea is "黒川温泉一旅館" — "Kurokawa Onsen as one inn." The roads are hallways, the river is a corridor, the village's 24 ryokan are guest rooms, and the rotenburo are the great baths shared by all guests. The tegata is the key to those great baths.

How it works

• ¥1,500 per adult, ¥700 per child (3 years – 6th grade)
• One pass lets you visit three participating rotenburo of your choice. You may also redeem any of the three "slots" for food, drinks, or souvenirs at member shops in the village
• Valid 6 months from purchase
• Sold at any participating ryokan and at 風の舎 (Kaze no Sha), the village tourism office
• Bath hours are typically 08:30 – 21:00 (each ryokan can vary, and baths may close for cleaning or guest preparation)
• Photography is not allowed in the baths, and the pass is non-transferable

The pass itself is a hand-finished disc cut from 小国杉 (Oguni cedar) — the local cedar of Minami-Oguni-machi. Each ryokan stamps it with its own design when you bathe, so the disc grows into a small keepsake of the trip. 1% of every tegata sale is returned to the village to fund landscape preservation and natural-environment work in the onsen-gō.

A short history

The tegata started in 1986, during Japan's bubble era. Two ryokan in the village could not afford to build their own baths, and the founder of Shinmei-kan suggested the radical idea of sharing the baths between inns — so guests of any one ryokan could bathe in the others' rotenburo with a single pass. The philosophy "地域全体で黒川温泉郷を盛り上げたい" — "lift up the whole onsen village together, not each inn alone" — has since become the manifesto of Kurokawa Onsen. The tegata is its physical token.

Earning the Onsen Oni badge

Use one tegata, or several across visits, to bathe at every one of the 24 participating ryokan listed here. On completion, the Kurokawa Onsen Tourism Cooperative awards the title 湯めぐり達人 (yumeguri-tatsujin, "Bath-Hopping Master") — along with a white towel with printed gold lettering (the earlier version was a black embroidered towel), a drawstring pouch, and a ¥3,000 lodging voucher. The master's name is also posted on the honor board at the 風の舎 tourism office in the village. Repeat completions (3rd, 5th, 10th time) unlock exclusive merchandise. Our badge mirrors this — it is repeatable: you can earn it again every time you complete the full set, just like the cooperative recognizes 3-time and 10-time completers in real life.

Submit proof through the feedback channel — a fully-stamped tegata is ideal; a series of stamped/check-in photos from each of the 24 ryokan works too. There is no time limit.

Sources

• 黒川温泉観光旅館協同組合 — 入湯手形
• 黒川温泉公式 — 黒川温泉一旅館