Ekimae Koutou onsen — Local services in Beppu

One of the oldest onsen (together with Takegawara) in Beppu! The same building is being used for more than 90 years! ONSEN review: entrance ¥200, you get your ticket from the vending machine opposite the reception, they have two different onsen, a hot water "Atsuyu" (top left ¥200 yellow button) and a normal temperature "Nuruyu" (second row from the top, left ¥200 button), get your ticket and give it to the reception guy. The onsen stamps (they have both Beppu and Kyushu booklet stamp) are next to the vending machine. Toilet at the 2nd floor at the end of the corridor on your left. You need to bring your own shampoos and towel, otherwise you can rent a towel for ¥50 and buy shampoo ¥40 or/and soap ¥20, blue bottom buttons at the vending machine. There is parking just outside (you will need to go on the pavement to park). Free lockers at the reception. Left of the reception is the Nuruyu, the normal temperature bath. There are two medium sized tubs which they might have different temperatures depending on the day because you can add cold water to cool it down. Right of the reception is Atsuyu with one medium sized tub. This is hot as you can't regulate the water temperature by adding cold water. Please note but in all of them you will need to go down/up some stairs. Whenever I've found a local bathing he was always friendly, the same with the guy at the reception. The facilities might show some of their age but the place has a great step-back-in-time atmosphere and is definitely...

The 'koutou' (高等) in this place's name means 'high class' or 'high grade', and maybe it was once, but now it is a rather tired looking onsen.

Me and a friend went here wanting to try an onsen that was within walking distance of us and found a basic 2-onsen building. We tried the atsuyu [admittedly the 'hot' option] and almost scalded ourselves, it was so hot with seemingly no way of making it a tolerable temperature, and there were no showerheads, only taps, which made it awkward to wash long thick hair even using the buckets provided.

The onsen room also did just look dirty, with what looked like black mould growing on the ceiling and upper walls...

If you want that super basic onsen experience, then go for it, it's cheap [200 yen with free lockers], but I personally will be looking for a more well tended, clean onsen with...

It's a really small onsen for a low price. The retro vibe was nice. There is only one pool in the female section while the male section has two. My boyfriend said the hot bath was unbearable so I recommend using the lukewarm one. The low rating is because of the lady who runs the place. We speak japanese and still the lady was acting like she didn't really understand us and treated us differently than japanese customers. We thanked her gratefully in the end and she didn't even care to notice. I would recommend going to a different onsen in the area if you don't want to be treated weirdly for being...