“ Among the nine core elements that qualify Arima Onsen as a therapeutic spring, Arima contains seven of them, and having so many blended components is extremely rare in the world. Although it is just outside a major city, the hot springs are deep in the mountains, so public baths outside the inns are plentiful. You can even do a day trip to soak from Osaka and Kobe.

Arima Onsen has two different water qualities: an iron- and salt-rich one called “金泉” (aka red spring), and a colorless, clear “银泉,” a radon- or carbonated-type spring. Only in Arima Onsen can you enjoy both water types. A walk through the historic Teramachi area and around Yumoto-zaka is also part of the fun, where you can feel the onsen atmosphere. Shops selling carbonated crackers, bamboo crafts, and doll-style calligraphy brushes, the sources of 金泉 and 银泉, the baths using each spring—“金之汤” and “银之汤”—and “有马工房,” all left a strong impression.

Another highlight of visiting Arima is seeing scenery that changes with the seasons. In Zuihōji Park and Drum Waterfall Park, starting with autumn foliage, every visit brings a different scene. ”

Kyoto → Arima

There are direct buses from Kyoto to Arima, 1–2 departures per day, and it takes about 50 minutes. You can buy tickets on this website: https://japanbusonline.com/zh-cn/CourseSearch/12800290001. Even during cherry-blossom season, tickets were still easy to get. I bought the afternoon bus on the same morning, and it seemed the morning service was the more popular one.

Board at Kyoto Station’s Hachijō-guchi (H2 boarding area). As mentioned before, it’s a bus stop right outside the entrance to the waiting room, and there is a convenience store inside the waiting room.

The ticket says large luggage is not allowed (a regular 28-inch suitcase is considered large luggage), but I checked later and found it’s not enforced strictly. The bus is a regular coach bus, and luggage can go in the lower luggage storage area.

銀水荘 兆楽

The ryokan we chose was 銀水荘 兆楽. Before leaving, we called the hotel to have them arrange a shuttle. For some reason, my phone couldn’t reach the hotel directly, so I ended up asking the front desk at 京都柏悦 to help transfer the call.

It was a pleasant surprise that this hotel has front-desk staff who speak Chinese. After coordinating, we booked a shuttle.

However, after arriving at Arima Hankyu Station, the other passengers on the bus were quickly picked up, and there were even hotel shuttles waiting on the roadside ahead of time. Ours, on the other hand, didn’t come for a long time. I was already about to go out shopping when it finally arrived. Another family got on first, and the driver told us we should wait for the next one—15 minutes. We immediately complained that this arrangement was unreasonable; after he asked for our names, he then said, “Okay, you can get on too.”

It just felt very chaotic.

The hotel is not close to the station (the hot-spring street area), so the drive is about 10 minutes. When we arrived, the staff were busy sending off other guests and seemed not to notice we were new arrivals. We stood at the entrance waiting for someone to help us with our luggage, and only then they came.

No big issues after that. Check-in was smooth, and a staff member led us to our room. The 10-tatami room was very small—after setting up 3 beds there was no space at all to spread out the suitcases. Next time, we definitely need to book a larger room.

The room already had tea and snacks prepared. After the receptionist explained the details, she handed our room over to the manager in charge. The room owner was quite friendly.

This is what the view looked like outside.

This time, we booked both dinner and breakfast to be served in our room. Our little one was very happy about that. When leaving, she said that although this hotel was not as upscale as the previous one, she still liked it because she prefers to eat in her room.

At afternoon tea time, the hotel served homemade ice cream and drinks, but they were unavailable by dinnertime.

I liked the shiro-uo sushi.

The menu is what you’d expect from a typical ryokan: light and delicious. Our taste has also become gradually lighter over the past two years.

There was a small piece of wagyu, and this spring’s featured item was firefly squid.

And bamboo shoots showed up again.

The steamer was heated with self-heating packs.

After dinner, we all changed into yukata and went to soak. This inn had an experience we didn’t get at other ryokan: the men’s and women’s baths are switched twice a day. The water is the same, only the layout differs.

The baths are separated into a large indoor bath and an open-air bath. The dressing room and shower are in the large bath area. Inside it, there is an indoor bath, and outside is a small gold-spring pool. To use the outdoor pool, you need to shower and dress in the main area, then walk across the public area to the opposite room, which is inconvenient.

The iron scent in the gold bath was super strong, while the silver bath was less distinctive in comparison. That evening, there were almost no people in the bathhouse, and I was able to soak alone for a long time before anyone else arrived.

After coming back to the room, we wanted to book a massage. The inn’s in-house massage slots were all full. Luckily, they also offer an in-room massage service, so we booked a therapist to come to our room. Usually, you can choose the therapist’s gender, but the hotel said it was very busy that day and they couldn’t offer that option. I was assigned an older male therapist.The table was left off to the side in the evening. Sleeping on the floor looked comfortable, but it was really inconvenient when it came time to get up. No wonder many Japanese inns now also offer Western-style beds. The upside is they feel much cleaner.

The uncle-style massage felt more like what you get in mainland China, with very strong pressure—so much that I was crying out from the pressure. I still felt it was very professional. Also, the price was excellent: only 6,000 yen for one hour. The kid fell asleep while the uncle was massaging me. After soaking in the hot spring, I really slept very soundly.

I slept right through until our scheduled breakfast time in the morning.

The staff member in the morning had changed from a middle-aged attendant to a younger one. While she was making the bed and tidying up, we went back to the lobby for another look around.

The hotel has a small souvenir shop with Arima specialties, including carbonated cakes and the like. They’re pricier than those sold in the outside onsen street. It also sells soup dumplings, but unfortunately all the clear-broth ones were sold out.

We went back to our room for breakfast. This is a traditional Japanese breakfast. We’re already quite familiar with this kind of setup at this hotel and ate everything.

The child’s meal was almost the same as the adult meal, except that there was no sashimi or raw meat.

Then we went back to the hot springs again. Going to an onsen ryokan is all about soaking. Since no one was around, I took some photos of the outdoor section. After changing in the large bath area, we had to walk along a short path. In the morning, the men’s and women’s sections had already been switched, and I went to the men’s bath I used the night before.

There is a “walking pool” here, in the silver-bath area, where you can walk around while you soak—it’s actually pretty fun. In the morning it was still quiet, so I almost had the whole bathing time to myself. After 10:30 in the morning, the hot springs close for cleaning. I was too slow—I was still washing when the cleaning staff came to remind me—so I rushed to finish and leave.

It was almost time to check out. We took the shuttle bus to leave the hotel, but the service was still not very warm.

The hotel itself was decent for both food and lodging, and it even had a Chinese front desk, but it is an older property. Overall service is average, and the shuttle-bus operation is somewhat chaotic. There are many onsen ryokans in Arima, so if we go again, we’ll probably pick a different one.

Arima -> Kobe

There are several ways to get from Arima to Kobe. We chose to take the JR high-speed bus, and it takes about half an hour to get to Kobe. https://www.kousokubus.net/JpnBus/zhcn/

The female attendant at reception who spoke Chinese said this bus needed to be purchased in advance. I hurried over to the bus stop and bought a ticket, but once on the bus I realized I only needed to tap an IC card and didn’t need to prebook.

At JR station, we debated for a long time whether to wander the onsen street before leaving. A teammate wanted to try to find out what carbonated cakes taste like. But dragging luggage was a hassle, and it didn’t look like there was much worth seeing based on others’ guides, so we decided to head straight out in the end. It’s a small regret.

Arima was already in the late phase of cherry blossom season.

Our short stop in Arima was good: good food, good hot springs, and a decent night’s sleep. On such a long trip, you really need a no-schedule rest day like this.

Kobe, here we come.

About the Author

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