Toshoan
湯布院温泉 東匠庵
Does Toshoan allow tattoos? In a private bath
Toshoan takes eight rooms and gives each room its own bathing place in ceramic, cypress or cut stone. It sits on the Kawaminami side, away from the day-trip crowds on the shopping street.
Eight rooms, eight baths, no shared bathhouse to negotiate. The operator’s own line is that all eight rooms are completely private spaces with their own bathing place, in ceramic, cypress or stone depending on the room. The water is an alkaline simple spring. Nothing is published about tattoos because nothing needs to be.
The bath
There is no large bath here at all. The FAQ says so in one line, and the same FAQ says every room bath is source-fed spring water, an alkaline simple spring the inn describes as clear and soft. All eight rooms have their own bathing place with Mount Yufu in front of it, and the material changes room by room. Nanohana has a rock bath which, with the windows opened, sets the mountain behind the steam. Cosmos and Rindo are upstairs with ceramic tubs. Yusuge is cypress, with the valley filling the window. Kikyo, one of the two detached Japanese-Western rooms, uses Towada stone, which the inn says suits a bath better than most; Tsubaki, the other, has a rebuilt view bath and a loft above it. Botan, the detached special room, carries both a cypress indoor bath and an open-air one, with an engawa and a wood deck outside. Shakuyaku, the royal suite, is the single room the inn sells as its best and takes two people.
The rooms look over rice fields, and the Seven Stars cruise train crosses them from time to time, though the inn says it runs on no timetable you can plan around.
The hotel
Eight rooms, four in the main house and four detached along a covered corridor. Dinner is creative kaiseki at 18:00 or 19:00 and breakfast is built on a medicinal rice porridge, at 8:00, 8:30 or 9:00, all of it in private rooms in the Asagiri dining room. The bar lounge faces Mount Yufu and the railway, and is where the welcome drink and the coffee after breakfast are served. Check-in 15:00, out 11:00, seven free parking spaces.
What is good about it
- No large bath on the property, and the FAQ says every room bath is source-fed spring water.
- Botan is the one room with two baths, a cypress tub indoors and an open-air one out on its own deck.
- A taxi ticket at the desk, because there is no shuttle and the station is a 10-minute ride.
Getting there
About 10 minutes by taxi from Yufuin STN, on the Kawaminami side among the rice fields. There is no shuttle: the inn asks you to book Minato Taxi and come straight to the front desk, which then hands over a taxi ticket.
Yufuin STN · JR Kyudai line; the Yufuin no Mori and Yufu limited expresses from Hakata, about 2 hours 10 minutes
The inn publishes no walking time and asks guests to take a taxi, about 10 minutes.
Airport bus from Oita to Yufuin STN, about 55 minutes.
Where it is
Hakata STN
JR Yufuin no Mori limited express 2 h 14
Kokura STN
Oita STN
✈Oita Airport
Hotel locationYufuin STN
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 (全8室のお部屋はすべて専用の湯処付きの完全プライベートな空間, on the operator’s top page)
Read on: tosyoan.com
Best for: Two adults who want the quietest possible version of a Yufuin night
Eight rooms, from a royal suite down to main-building rooms with a view; bath material differs by room. The FAQ takes children of any age: 4,400 yen with two meals, free without meals or bedding.
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