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Creating an open-air hot spring bath (without a hot spring) at our cheap Japanese country house【Vids】

Casey Baseel Dec 30, 2024
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Thanks to the power of friendship, it’s outdoor bath time at the SoraHouse!

With things slowing down as Japan eases into the New Year’s vacation period, we figured it was time to head up into the mountains and spend a relaxing day at the SoraHouse, the countryside home in Saitama Prefecture that we bought for just one million yen (US$9,100 at the time of purchase). However, New Year’s is also when temperatures start to dip into serious winter-cold levels, which is where our good friend Butch, a.k.a. Big Wave, comes in.

See, Butch knows that our boss, Yoshio, is a huge fan of long, hot baths, especially outdoor hot spring baths. Unfortunately, for all the cool stuff we’ve discovered on the SoraHouse property, an underground hot spring source isn’t one of them, but when Butch came to visit, he was happy to share his knowledge with of how to make a “drum bath” out of an empty oil drum-style container.

▼ The first part of the process (note that like Butch/Big Wave, the SoraHouse has two names, the other being Rocket-sou)

▼ The second part of the process

For all of its rustic charm though, there is a drawback to the drum bath set up, in that only one person can use it at a time. Instead of being left out in the cold while the boss bathed, though, our Japanese language-reporter Go Hatori, who was also part of this expedition to the SoraHouse, decided to once again rig up our ice chest bath that we developed last year.

▼ And yes, as linguists we appreciate the irony of using an ice chest to hold piping hot bathwater.

As the water was heating up and we were catching up with Butch, the conversation turned to the time we turned the SoraHouse into a “gaming house” covered in LED lights. We actually still have a lot of them at the place, so Butch suggested “Hey, wouldn’t it look cool to use them to light up the baths?”

So Go got to work, grabbing spools of the adhesive-backed strands of LED lights and wrapping them around our two “tubs.” With the sun starting to go down it was now freezing cold out, and Go’s muscles were already tired from other work he’d been doing around the house earlier in the day, but he soldiered on, determined to have the lights ready to turn on by the time night fell.

▼ Please remember, though, that it’s extremely important to make sure that any electrical equipment near water is properly secured and positioned to prevent it from falling into the tub.

Since Butch’s drum bath construction method involves building a fire underneath the drum, the rim ends up being pretty high, higher than we were going to be able to just step into. We’ve always got one renovation project or another going on at the SoraHouse, though (provided you’ve got a loose definition of “renovation”), though, so this problem was easily solved by simply setting up one of our ladders.

Ah, but wait, we said what Yoshio was in the mooc for wasn’t just an outdoor bath, but an outdoor hot spring bath, right? With no hot spring source from below to draw on, we were going to have to take a top-down approach, and so Yoshio pulled out…

…a bottle of yunomoto. Also called onsenmoto, yunomoto is essentially a hot spring base mix, containing the combination of minerals you’d find in the water of a naturally occurring hot spring. This yunomoto, produced by Murakami Shokai in Oita Prefecture, replicates the mineral mix found in the Oita town of Beppu, one of Japan’s top hot spring meccas. It also comes personally recommended by Professor Bath, the hot spring researcher who’s visited more than 2,000 hot springs, and who presented us with the bottle when he gave us his list of the eight most unforgettable hot springs in Japan.

▼ If Professor Bath hasn’t gifted you a bottle, it can also be purchased online.

As soon as Yoshio started pouring in the yunomoto, the water in the bath started to turn a milky white, and the unmistakable sulfurous sent of an onsen began bubbling up with the steam rising off the surface.

And with that, it was time to switch on the lights!

Being located on a rural mountainside, things get very dark around the SoraHouse after sundown. The shadowy surroundings made the pulsing LED lights all the more vibrant.

Now all that was left to do was hop in! Ordinarily, for hot spring bathing in Japan you’re supposed to be naked, but since the SoraHouse facilities don’t currently include a changing room of any sort, Yoshio and Go didn’t strip down entirely, but the baths still felt incredible.

As they soaked in their respective spaces, they felt the fatigue of a busy day, and, truth be told, a busy year, start to melt away.

They also found a uniquely appealing combination of contrasts to an outdoor hot spring bath in a flashing LED light tub, part tranquil relaxing, part pumped-up excitement. And when they leaned back and looked at the sky…

…they were treated to another beautiful combo of the last rays of the sun sliding away and the stars starting to shine for the night.

Generous guy that he is, Yoshio didn’t want to hog the SoraHouse’s fancy new drum bath, so after a while he and Go then swapped places.

Already a drum bathing veteran, Butch declined to take a soak, instead opting to stay on selfie duty.

It may not have been fancy, but it was a lot of fun, and we hope that wherever and however you’re spending New Year’s, it’s as filled with warmth and laughter as our baths were.

Photos ©SoraNews24
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