Okamotoya Ryokan
岡本屋旅館
Does Okamotoya Ryokan allow tattoos? In a private bath
Rooms called Bokai, Nogiku and Botan each hold an indoor tub of Myoban’s milky blue sulfur water, self-flowing and untouched. The rest of this 1875 inn bathes together in the garden.
Three of Okamotoya’s rooms have a private hot spring bath, and it is an indoor one rather than an open-air one: Bokai at 51 square meters, Nogiku at 48 and Botan at 30. The inn describes all three as 源泉かけ流し, so the milky blue sulfur water reaches the room undiluted. Every other room type is listed as 内湯なし, and the inn runs no reservable private bath, so the room grade decides everything. The garden open-air bath and the two large baths are shared, and the inn publishes no tattoo rule for them.
Show this at the front desk
ご滞在中はいつでも源泉掛け流しの温泉をお楽しみいただけます。プライベート空間で贅沢なひとときをお過ごしください。
The operator’s own wording, to show at the desk if you need to.
The bath
Three rooms have a bath of their own and all three are indoor ones. Bokai is 51 square meters, an 8-tatami and a 6-tatami room together, with onsen-dyed sliding doors, a Karacho partition and a Beppu bamboo light. Nogiku, refitted in July 2025, is 48 square meters with twin beds and an engawa looking out at the bay, Takasakiyama and the Myoban bridge. Botan is 30 square meters, an 8-tatami room with Simmons beds. Every other room type is listed without a bath, and no tub here is let out by the hour, so the room grade settles it when you book.
The water is the same throughout: a self-flowing acidic sulfur simple spring of the hydrogen sulfide type, with no water and no heat added. It reads pale blue in clear morning light, green by day and deep indigo at dusk, and the white flakes turning over in it are the yunohana. A drinking tap is set by the bath, with the inn suggesting about 100 cc half an hour before a meal.
Shared bathing is 15:00 to 23:00 and 06:00 to 09:30. There are steps and stairs in the bath buildings, which the inn flags for older guests.
The hotel
A wooden inn on the slope below the Myoban bridge, in its hundred and fiftieth year and still run by the same house. Rooms run from a single-occupancy 6-tatami to Matsu, a 65-square-meter two-room suite that sleeps five, with a refurbished Japanese-modern room in between; several are on the second floor up stairs. Check-in is 15:00 with the last arrival at 18:00, checkout 10:00. Amenities are uka, ORGA and a ReFa dryer.
What is good about it
- Three rooms with a bath, all of them indoors, Bokai, Nogiku and Botan, and nothing to rent by the hour.
- Self-flowing, undiluted and unheated, and drinkable at the tap by the bath.
- No day bathing at all, the inn states in as many words that it runs no tachiyori bath.
Getting there
Kamenoi bus 5, 24 or 41 from the west exit of JR Beppu STN to the Myoban stop, about thirty minutes, then a minute on foot: cross the road, go down the slope and turn into the narrow lane on the left. A taxi from the station takes about fifteen minutes.
Kannawa bus stop STN · Kamenoi buses 5, 24 and 41 from the west exit of Beppu STN
Get off at Myoban, one minute from the gate; Kannawa is about 8 minutes back along the route.
No shop or convenience store nearby; the nearest is about 20 minutes on foot.
Where it is
Hakata STN
JR Sonic limited express 1 h 55
Kokura STN
Oita STN
✈Oita Airport
Hotel locationKannawa bus stop
What happens when you arrive
Skip the shared baths and reserve the private one the way this page describes. Once the door is closed, the bath is yours.
How we know
Confirmed from official site, bath structure rather than a tattoo policy (the guest room page, per room type)
Read on: okamotoya.net/guestroom/
Best for: Bathing in Myoban’s milky blue sulfur water alone, inside a 150-year-old wooden inn
Founded 1875. The spring is 硫黄泉 酸性・含硫黄-単純温泉（硫化水素型）, self-flowing, with no water or heat added. Shared bathing hours are 15:00 to 23:00 and 6:00 to 9:30. The inn takes no day bathers at all, which its own site states as 岡本屋は立ち寄り入浴を行っておりません. If you specifically want an open-air bath to yourself, this is not the property, because the private tubs are indoors.
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