Photo/Illutration Kurone Iwaburo is a public outdoor bath on the beach in Hokkawa in Shizuoka Prefecture’s Izu Peninsula. Visitors can enjoy moon viewing while listening to the crashing waves. Bathers will feel like they’re floating in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. (Photo by Lisa Vogt)

Editor's note: In the Lisa's Things, Places and Events series, Lisa Vogt visits old and new places of interest throughout Japan and introduce their charms.

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“Moon River, wider than a mile, I’m crossing you in style someday,” sings the mesmerizing Audrey Hepburn, sitting on a windowsill in the movie “Breakfast at Tiffany’s.”

Whenever I sing that song at karaoke, people start to excuse themselves to go to the restroom or suddenly remember that they have an urgent call to make. What gives?

I had always wondered about the meaning of “Moon River,” and then I went to Kurone Iwaburo in Hokkawa, a small seaside hamlet with about 200 residents on the east coast of the Izu Peninsula.

“Ah, so this is it!” I exclaimed loudly to my friend beside me, soaking in the outdoor hot spring right at the ocean’s edge with waves crashing just meters away. The timing couldn’t have been more perfect.

The moon rose out of the sea and stretched a beam of moonlight on the water, heading straight toward me. The waves sparkled in the reflected glowing light, and there it appeared--Moon River.

Hokkawa is among “Japan’s 100 Famous Moons” locations.

In the mid-1920s, Sotaro Torisawa, a local fisherman, noticed one spot near a big rock on the ocean floor where seaweed never grew. He had a hunch that there might be a hot springs source, and he began digging.

He was right and found a spot where 160 liters of hot water per minute gushed out. He wasted no time in constructing an open-air bath for the people of the village.

Since then, however, Kurone Iwaburo has had waves of drama crash upon its rocks. When it opened, mixed bathing was not as big a deal as it’s made out to be in recent times.

In 2017, when the bath was finally officially registered, it was ordered to close down or construct separate men’s and women’s facilities. The local “yumoribito” guardians of the hot spring water got to work and proudly unveiled the “new” Kurone Iwaburo.

Three months later, a typhoon struck and washed it all away without a trace. Devastated, the yumoribito got together and discussed what to do. With climate change upon us, they decided to make a more robust structure using heavier beams and materials.

They did, but two years later, in 2019, Mother Nature sent another massive typhoon that destroyed all their hard work. Despite being numb and in a state of shock, the villagers got to work again, and after 80 days, a new structure, this time with removable walls and lighting, reopened.

I take my hat (and clothes) off to the villagers and their ceaseless fortitude.

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This article by Lisa Vogt, a Washington-born and Tokyo-based photographer, originally appeared in the April 14 issue of Asahi Weekly. It is part of the series “Lisa’s Things, Places and Events,” which depicts various parts of the country through the perspective of the author, a professor at Aoyama Gakuin University. 

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