# Shugojin Onsen

East of the Waiita hot spring district, along a stream that runs at the foot of Waita-san, there is a single inn. Not a cluster of hotels, not a village that has learned to accommodate visitors — just one place, fed by its own source, where the water arrives as it comes from the ground and leaves without interruption. The road from Oguni town stretches ten kilometers along Route 387, then four more into the hills, and by the time you arrive the world has narrowed considerably.

The waters here flow in what is called *kakenanashi* — source to bath without interruption, the temperature and mineral content unchanged by storage or mixing. At Shugojin Onsen, the bathing is done in private rooms reserved by coin, which means the rhythm of the place is unhurried, almost solitary. You wait. You enter. The sound of the stream outside and the sound of the water inside are briefly the same sound.

To stay several nights at a single inn beside a mountain stream is to understand something about what *toji* — the old practice of bathing for the body's repair — once required. Patience, repetition, a willingness to let the days go unmarked. There is nothing here to schedule around. The mountain stands to the west. The water comes and goes.