[Kishiro] Staying in Yamagata’s Oldest Hot-Spring Inn

On Friday night, I stayed at Kishiro, an old hot-spring inn in Semi Onsen, Yamagata Prefecture.

Kishiro is said to be the oldest surviving hot-spring inn building in Yamagata. From the moment I entered, it felt very different from a modern onsen hotel. Wooden staircases, long corridors, old decorations and several baths are scattered throughout the large building.

There are many guest rooms, but only ten people in seven groups were staying that night. With so few guests in such a large wooden inn, much of the building was remarkably quiet.

The Sennin-buro – the “Roman Bath”

Kishiro has several different baths, but the most distinctive is the Sennin-buro, also known as the “Roman Bath.”Inside is a mural depicting Pan, the half-human, half-goat god of Greek mythology, together with the nymph Syrinx.

A Roman-style bath decorated with Greek mythology is not something I expected to find inside an old wooden hot-spring inn in rural Yamagata.The spring water is clear, mildly alkaline and comfortable enough to stay in for quite a while. I bathed three times during my stay, and every time I went to the Sennin-buro, I had the entire bath to myself.It was only the following morning that I learned there had been just ten guests in the whole inn.

The Dutch Bath and Family Bath

Then there is the Oranda-buro, literally the “Dutch Bath.”
A Roman Bath, a Dutch Bath, and a family bath all exist within the same old Japanese inn. Walking through the building from one bath to another, the different additions seem almost like layers from different periods in the inn’s history.
I also had the Dutch Bath entirely to myself.

For such a large inn, there were surprisingly few signs of other guests. At times, walking through its long corridors and bathing alone, it felt as though I had much of the building to myself.

Sleeping Above the Roman Bath

My room was a six-tatami Japanese room on the second floor of the main building, directly above the Roman Bath.

It appeared to be one of the oldest rooms in the inn and was used for the cheapest single-occupancy plan. Apart from the aluminum window frames and television, very little seemed to have changed since the Taisho era, around a century ago.

The room was also close to the communal kitchen. That kitchen is an important part of what Kishiro still is today. Plates, bowls and cooking utensils are provided, and guests staying for longer periods can prepare their own meals.
I had made the reservation on the day of my stay, too late to order dinner, so I had bought prepared food at a supermarket in Shinjo. Had I known there was such a well-equipped kitchen, I could have bought meat and other ingredients and cooked for myself instead.

A Toji Inn That Still Functions as One

The following morning, after breakfast, I spoke with the proprietress.

Kishiro still receives guests who come for toji, the traditional Japanese practice of staying at a hot spring for days or even weeks, bathing repeatedly while living simply at the inn.

They do not come only from the surrounding area. Some travel considerable distances to stay here. During my visit, for example, a couple from Nagoya were in the middle of a ten-night stay.

The communal kitchen therefore isn’t simply a nostalgic feature preserved from the past. People still use the inn in much the same way that generations of hot-spring visitors once did: staying for days, preparing their own food and repeatedly bathing in the spring water.

That makes Kishiro different from an old building preserved merely for people to look at. The building survives, but so does the way it was meant to be used.

The Cost of Keeping an Old Wooden Inn

The proprietress also told me about something less visible to guests: snow.

There had not been much snow that year, but in a typical winter, removing snow from the roofs costs the inn around ¥2–3 million a year.

In this area, she explained, they call it yuki-otoshi—literally “dropping the snow”—rather than the more commonly used expression yuki-oroshi, or “snow removal from a roof.”

Keeping a huge old wooden inn standing is not simply a matter of deciding not to demolish it. Snow falls every winter, and maintaining a building of this size requires both work and money year after year.

As a visitor, I can look at an old wooden staircase or corridor and appreciate its age. For the people running the inn, however, it remains a working building that has to survive another winter.

Staying Inside the History of the Inn

Different periods seem to coexist throughout Kishiro.

There are guest rooms that retain the atmosphere of around a century ago, a Roman Bath decorated with Greek mythology, a Dutch Bath, and a communal kitchen where long-stay hot-spring guests can still cook their own meals.

That combination is what makes staying here different from simply visiting a historic ryokan.

I slept in one of its old rooms, walked its long wooden corridors, passed the communal kitchen, and bathed in its baths. Meanwhile, a couple from Nagoya was spending ten nights here in the old tradition of toji.

At Kishiro, staying overnight is not just a way to see the old building. It is probably the best way to understand what the building was—and what it still is today.