Kusatsu Hot Spring Jizo-no-yu

Public bath with the time baths (jikan-yu)

Outline

There are many free public bath is in Kusatsu. Jizou-no-yu is one of those.
Kusatsu is famous in its scalding hot time baths (jikan-yu). This is introduced to the tourist guide. There is Jizou-dou (the temple for guardian deity of children and travelers) near by. And there is the small fields where sinter is collected. This is the public bath with time baths (jikan-yu).

Jizo temple

The Jizo temple was built in 1808.

Location

Kusatsu, Kusatsu-machi, Azuma-gun, Gunma Prefecture
TEL : 0279-88-3642 (Kusatsu tourist society)

Impression

Hot springs are the bath for the time bath (jikan-yu) and ordinary bath for man and woman. The general public can not take time bath (jikan-yu).

Hot water is white and muddy. It tasted sour a little when I licked the hot water. The bath is very hot. You can add some cold water to the bath because there is a hose of the water service. But very hot bath is nomal in Kusatsu.

Because here is a back street, there is more local people than the traveller. This neighborhood looks just as it did in the old days.

Business

Business hours	24 hours
Closure day	open throughout the year
Charge	It is free

Access

You get off Shibukawa IC of Kan-etsu express-way, and go to Nkano-jo by Route 17 and Route 353. Go to Naganohara by Route 145 and go to Kusatsu by Route 292.
There is Jizou-no-yu in the place to climb a slope of back street a little from the fields where sinter is collected (yubatake) in the cenert of Kusatsu.
You can use a parking lot lin front of bus terminal or the the fields where sinter is collected.

Date of visit : June, 1998

Time bath (jikan-yu)

Time bath (jikan-yu) is the hot spring treatment that the bather repeat the soak by time schedule. I have not taken the time bath.

The explanation is said that time bath is done as follows:

The patients stir the water with long sticks to cool the hot water at the sign from the bath master.
Next, they pour hot water over themselves many times to warm up their body.

They plung in the water at the sign from the bath master. The bath master counts off 3 minutes.

The time bath of the Jizou- no-yu is done now. The sign read "If there is the applicant for the time bath, please contact with the bath master."

Because this is a town-run hot spring, there is the following notice about the time bath.

To the bather
This is a town-run bath. It is opened free for traveller. As for the guidance of the time bath, it isn't done at present by the regulation such as doctor law.

We feel the time bath is active in our time.