Ryokan Kadoya
旅館かどや
Does Ryokan Kadoya allow tattoos? In a private bath
Kadoya is a 13-room family inn in the middle of Hirayama, and its one detached room has a semi-open-air tub that fills with the village’s slick sulfur water day and night.
No tattoo rule is published. The inn’s one semi-open-air room, a detached annex, has its own tub of undiluted Hirayama water usable around the clock, so a tattooed guest who books it can skip the men’s and women’s baths, which also take day visitors. The main-building rooms have no spring tub.
The bath
Kadoya's water is Hirayama's alkaline simple sulfur spring, which the inn serves 100 percent kakenagashi (spring water that flows through the tub and isn't reused) with no water or heat added. It describes the water as slick, like a cosmetic serum, with a sulfur smell it calls unusual for the area, and repeats the story that Kato Kiyomasa, lord of Kumamoto Castle, came here to cure a heat rash. It lists skin, rheumatism, neuralgia, atopic dermatitis and stiff joints among its uses.
The shared side is a men's bath and a women's bath. Day visitors are taken 3 to 8 p.m. for ¥400 (children ¥250, infants ¥100), with shampoo, conditioner, body soap and a dryer provided, and the baths close to visitors on Wednesdays.
The private tub belongs to the inn's one semi-open-air room, set apart in a detached annex. The inn's photos show a rectangular tub lined in grey stone under a thick cypress rim, flat stones set into the walls and a window at its side. The inn says the tub can be used 24 hours, and only this room is stocked with its own shampoo and soap. It is sold as the semi-open-air room plan.
The hotel
Thirteen rooms in a small family-run inn near the middle of the Hirayama village, which the inn likens to a grandmother's house. The main-building rooms are plain Japanese rooms of 6 to 10 mats looking over fields and a stream. Dinner from 6 p.m. is home-style cooking built around pork shabu-shabu (thin-sliced meat swished in hot broth), served in private dining rooms, with rice grown by local farmers; breakfast is at 8 a.m. The lobby sells souvenirs and soaps made with Hirayama water. Check-in 3 p.m., check-out 10 a.m.
Good to know
- One room, one tub: the detached semi-open-air room is the only bath here you don't share.
- The room tub runs 24 hours, on undiluted source water.
- One minute from the bus stop, the Sanko bus's Hirayama Onsen-mae, by the inn's count.
- A house cat named Tom sometimes meets guests at the front desk.
Getting there
From Shin-Tamana the inn counts about 20 minutes by taxi. By bus, the city's guide puts the Kyushu Sanko bus to Yamaga bus center at about 50 minutes; from there a Sanko bus runs up the valley to the Hirayama Onsen-mae stop, which the inn puts a 1-minute walk from the door (about 5 minutes from the Horikawa bus stop of the same name). By car it is about 25 minutes from the Nankan or Kikusui interchange. Free parking for 20 cars.
Shin-Tamana STN · Kyushu Shinkansen, then Kyushu Sanko buses via Yamaga bus center
About 1 minute from the Sanko bus stop Hirayama Onsen-mae, by the inn's count.
Taxi about 20 minutes from Shin-Tamana.
Where it is
- Kyushu Shinkansen 40 min
- Sanko bus 50 min
- Shinkansen tickets Seats between any two stations, booked by date.
- JR Kyushu Rail Pass from ¥12,000 · 3, 5 or 7 consecutive days Worth it if Yamaga is one stop in a longer Kyushu trip by train.
- Kyushu SunQ Pass Worth it if you’d rather ride buses. It covers the Sanko buses from Shin-Tamana and Kumamoto to Yamaga and highway buses across the island.
- Japan Rail Pass from ¥53,000 · 7, 14 or 21 days For a trip that takes in several regions by Shinkansen and JR lines.
What happens when you arrive
Use the bath in your room.
How we know
Bath layout confirmed, tattoo policy not published Checked on the official site: (the rooms page describes the detached room's semi-open-air bath, usable 24 hours)
Best for: a couple who wants a detached room with a stone-and-cypress tub of slick sulfur water at a homely village inn
Thirteen rooms. The main-building rooms are Japanese rooms of 6 to 10 mats over farmland and a stream. The single semi-open-air bath room is in a detached annex; the inn says its tub can be used 24 hours and stocks shampoo and body soap in that room only. Spring: alkaline simple sulfur, with no added water or heating, 100 percent kakenagashi. Men’s and women’s large baths; day bathing 3 to 8 p.m., ¥400 adults, ¥250 children, ¥100 infants, closed Wednesdays. Dinner from 6 p.m. in private dining rooms, breakfast from 8 a.m. Check-in 3 p.m., check-out 10 a.m.; bath tax ¥150. Free parking for 20 cars.
Book your stay
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