Ekimae Koto Onsen, Beppu: A Public Bathhouse With Overnight Lodging

Inside Atsuyu

The entrance to Atsuyu will be to your right when you’re facing the reception desk. The door with a red cloth hanging over it is the women’s bath while the blue cloth is the men’s bath.

This is the inside of the women’s bath. There is a bench and bathroom scale in the dressing room as well as a row of shelves for storing your belongings.

You can freely use the shelves if they’re empty, but lockers are only found in front of the reception desk, so please store your valuables in those lockers. Lockers with keys are 100 yen and there are no refunds.

The bathing room in Atsuyu is an oval-shaped bathtub that seems like it’d be able to fit about five people.

The bathing room is built in an area about one meter below the dressing room with there being no walls between the two rooms. The men’s bath is laid out to have bilateral symmetry with the women’s bath and is structured almost exactly the same.

The wall that divides the men’s and women’s bath is decorated with a fairytale-like stained glass style design.

The current names of the two types of baths available are Atsuyu and Nuruyu, but they were once called Kotoyu and Namiyu.

“Koto” means high class while “nami” means ordinary. You might expect that this bath that is decorated with brilliant stained glass was Kotoyu, but it was actually Namiyu. The other side, which is currently Nuruyu, was once Kotoyu.

At a glance, the hot springs supply to the bathtub seems like it’s been stopped, but the water continuously fills the bathtub from the inside.

The spring type is a simple hot spring with low alkaline levels. This type is mild on the skin, so both children and the elderly are able to safely enter the baths. You can also expect the water to have a smoothing effect on the skin.

Ekimae Koto Onsen’s hot springs are slightly reddish brown in color and contain plenty of sodium and sodium bicarbonate ions. The water will warm your body well, making it difficult to feel chilly after a bath and you can also expect a sanitizing effect. The water also contains components that will make your skin become beautiful, a result that make skincare lovers happy.

Atsuyu and Nuruyu’s water comes from separate sources and both bath waters emerge from on the premises. Hot spring water is poured into Atsuyu without regulating its temperature.

The water temperature will vary depending on the day, but the spring temperature is around 44.5 degrees. So please keep this in mind, as the waters will be around this temperature all year long. The faucet that runs water and is installed in the bathtub has had its handle removed, so customers are unable to regulate the temperature themselves.

Inside Nuruyu

The entrance to Nuruyu is to the left when facing the reception desk. These doors, too, are labeled with red characters for the women’s bath (right) and blue characters for the men’s bath (left).

You will arrive in the dressing room first upon entering with benches and lockers placed in the room. Like Atsuyu, there are no lockable lockers inside the dressing room, so be sure to store your valuables in the coin lockers in front of the reception desk.

The bathing room is down about two meters below the dressing room.

Directly opposite its entrance is a bathtub that can fit about three to four people. There is also a key-shaped bathtub under the area of the dressing room.

The two bathtubs have the same source, but the respective temperatures of the water are slightly different. Whichever bath is hotter will change depending on the day, but both are a temperature of about 38 – 40 degrees.

Precautions Before Entering

At public baths, let’s strive to rinse our bodies without exception before soaking in the bathtub to keep dirtying the water to a minimum. It is ideal to enter the water after properly cleaning your body with soap. If you have long hair, please gather it up so that it does not enter the water.

Sitting on the edge of the bathtub is also a manner violation in Beppu. The edge of the bathtub is a place to rest your head when soaking and is the reason why you should not place your bottom there.

For details on other manners, please refer to “Bath Culture In Japan: What Every Visitor Should Know Ahead Of Time.”

Cheap Overnight Lodging on 2F

The second floor of Ekimae Koto Onsen is an overnight lodging area that does not come with meals. There are two types of rooms: a private or large group room. The private room is 2600 yen per person and the large room is 1600 yen per person. A 100 yen bath tax is added to each room. Prices include tax and payment can only be made in cash.

The lodging fee also includes a usage fee for bathing and guests are able to use the baths on the first floor with no limit throughout the night excluding during cleaning hours.

Reservations can only be made by phone. Several college students that are proficient in English work as part-time staff here, so they can smoothly provide you with support if you are fortunate to be assigned to them. Other staff are also able to give you support if it is in simple English.

Check-in is at 16:00 and check-out is at 10:00. You can also have the reception desk look after your belongings even before check-in.

An Interior That Hasn’t Changed

Going up the old, wooden steps you will find a second floor that has been neatly remodeled while still keeping its ambience from when it was established in 1924.

This is a two-person room. Each room has been prepared with a TV, air conditioner, pot, futon set (Japanese-style mattress), and a yukata.

Again, if you are new to bathing like this, purchasable toothbrushes, soaps, and more are free for guests, so please tell the reception desk if you need these items. Smoking is possible in each room and there is no internet.

A private room is available either as a one or two-person room, but can be made into a larger room for about three to four people if the divider between the two rooms is removed like in the photo. During busy seasons, this may not be possible so please consult with the staff when you make your reservation.

Approximately ten people can stay in the large room. However, it can only be used by men.

A communal kitchen is located on the second floor and is furnished with a microwave, gas stove, and sink. However, standard cooking cannot be done with the equipment available, so please use these facilities for the purpose of warming up store-bought foods.

Ekimae Koto Onsen - A Retro Bathing Experience

How was this public bath with a charming and cute exterior that can also be lodged at overnight called Ekimae Koto Onsen? Definitely please visit Ekimae Koto Onsen to experience a hot spring of the working class from the old days that you can’t experience at a high-class inn.

Made in cooperation with: Ekimae Koto Onsen

Ekimae Koutou Onsen

13-14 Ekimae-cho, Beppu City, Oita Prefecture 874-0935