Hottarakashi Onsen — Attraction in Yamanashi

The hot springs facility looks up at Mt. Fuji and down on the Kofu basin by day, and commands a view of the reputed "ceiling of starry skies" at night.Visitors can enjoy the changing of the seasons: a blanket of peach flowers covers the Kofu basin in spring, a cool breeze reaches the location 700m above sea level in summer, the mountain range is embraced in red leaves in autumn, and the sky is thickly sprinkled with starts in winter.The site's two hot springs are Acchi-no-yu ("that bath") and Kocchi-no-yu ("this bath").Kocchi-no-yu is the facility's first bath that enjoys perpetual popularity. It consists of an open-air hot spring made of wood and stone, and an indoor bath fragrant of wood. It offers a view of Mt. Fuji in front, and the ridge of Mt. Kabuto (one of Yamanashi's 100 celebrated mountains) to the right.On the other hand, Acchi-no-yu which opened in the end of the Heisei 15 (2003) is doubled in size of the Kocchi-no-yu.It is popular as its grandeur and the location which commands the view of Kofu basin which had been authorized as the new Japan's best three night view.　 The bath which you can see the fantastic sunrise from is this Acchi-no-yu bath. Moreover, the original spring water of Acchi-no-yu is gushing from 1,500 meters under ground of crush zone, and that PH is 10.1 which is high level, and it will help your skin get smooth and will prevent you from feeling chill after a bath. After bathing, the specialty food, Ontama-Age meets your appetite.Spring quality: Acchi-no-Yu :alkaline simple hot spring/ Koccino-yu :alkaline simple hot spring (hot spring alkaline hypotonic)Effect: Neuralgia, muscle pain, joint pain, frozen shoulder syndrome, poor circulation, fatigue recovery, health promotion(Wine List of Yamanashi Prefecture)The shop in the site is selling 50 varieties of wine from...

Magical.

The staff is nice and helpful, the changing rooms are large and there's plenty of space to disrobe without bumping into someone, and the view Mt Fuji created a calming effect for my experience.

I chose this onsen because I have tattoos and I read that they were tattoo friendly. I confirmed this with the staff ahead of entering, and they assured me it was okay. I saw another person with tattoos as well.

I started my train ride later than I had planned and ended up making it to the onsen in the afternoon, and not at sunrise. Nevertheless I was able to get a good soak in and the outside temperature was very cool (3°) which helped balance the temperatures. One pool is very hot and I couldn't stay in it for very long, the lower pool was a perfect temperature and I felt like I could have stayed in until I was a prune.

Afterwards, I drank water and looked at Mt Fuji some more while I ate some very delicious ramen. There's lots of good available and a market as well if you're staying at the campsite. The campsite is close enough to walk to the onsen, which I wasn't sure about at first.

It's definitely popular, and I went in the off season. Go early, drink lots of water, have some food and let the magic do it's work. As a regular hotspring visitor I was...

Amazing little onsen. I have a lot of tattoos and marked this place down months ago as somewhere to try after reading that it was tattoo friendly online. I also called the day I went to confirm that that was still the case and got an enthusiastic yes from the staff. こっちの湯, the smaller bath, is a standard no-frills style. It closes earlier than the new bath on weekdays and was very quiet when we went in the afternoon, which was great. It is very clean and has two hot baths and two warm baths, which are perfect if you want to spend some extra time taking in the incredible view without overheating.

There's food available and the tempura soft boiled eggs are amazing. Tickets for the baths and the food are sold by vending machine and it's all in Japanese; if you aren't up on your kana and very basic kanji, you can still logic everything out and use a translation app to help. 温玉あげ is the button for the eggs.

There are no towels for rent so bring your own or buy them there. A big one is 1000 yen and has a cute print on it, so I didn't mind paying and keeping it as a souvenir.

I rented a car to get here from Fujikawaguchiko. It's an easy drive and there's...