Photo/Illutration Kusatsu Onsen, about 200 kilometers northwest of Tokyo, is centered around the symbolic Yubatake, a hot water field where large quantities of mineral-rich water from the town’s main hot springs flow. (Photo by Lisa Vogt)

I wholeheartedly concur with the folk song that originated in Kusatsu Onsen, Gunma Prefecture: “Kusatsu Yoitoko Ichido wa Oide” (Kusatsu is a good place, come here at least once).

There are hot springs scattered all over Japan, but not very many have kept the ambiance and spirit of how “onsen-gai” towns, in my book, should be.

Many big hotels sprang up in places blessed with hot mineral waters during Japan’s bubble economy of the late 1980s and early 1990s.

These ryokan and hotels hoarded guests by providing for all their needs--tearooms and coffee shops to lounge about in; karaoke, bars and game centers for entertainment; shops to buy souvenirs; multiple indoor and outdoor baths that switch from male to female depending on the time and day; and door-to-door shuttle bus services from train stations to hotel.

The result? They decimated the older onsen-gai towns.

No more couples and families strolling alleys with steam coming from cracks in the ground or square wooden crates with hot “manju” sweets inside. No more people wearing geta sandals and “yukata” (casual cotton kimono) with the ryokan’s name printed on them, and no more visiting small establishments to shop and be entertained.

I visited Kusatsu Onsen 30 years ago, so I felt a little trepidation about visiting again because the onsen town was picturesque and perfect in my memory. Revisiting places from yesteryear has often led to dismay.

I was relieved to find that it hasn’t lost its spirit! Kusatsu Onsen is situated between Mount Asamayama and Mount Shiranesan, two of the most active volcanos in Japan.

These mountains provide the mineral-rich thermal waters that flow to the central Yubatake, the source of all the waters for the baths in the town. Yubatake means “hot water field.”

As veggies are harvested from a field, “yunohana” (washed flowers of sulfur) are harvested from the Yubatake and sold as bath salts. They say that the name Kusatsu comes from “kusai-mizu,” or sulphuric water that gives off a smelly odor. The piping hot waters are concentrated at the Yubatake and cooled a bit before making their way to the onsen in the area.

Kusatsu Onsen was made famous by a German physician to Emperor Meiji, Erwin Balz (1849-1913). Balz was an “oyatoi gaikokujin,” a temporary foreign government adviser hired to modernize Japan. He wrote highly of the medicinal benefits of the waters.

There are daily “yumomi” (water stirring) performances at some onsen where women sing the “Kusatsu Yoitoko” song and stir the hot water with 180-centimeter wooden paddles to cool it down instead of diluting it with cold water.

Kusatsu Onsen is a rare gem, where the yunohana and onsen-gai of the past still blossom.

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This article by Lisa Vogt, a Washington-born and Tokyo-based photographer, originally appeared in the July 17 issue of Asahi Weekly. It is part of the series "Lisa’s Wanderings Around Japan," which depicts various places across the country through the perspective of the author, a professor at Meiji University.

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