Onsen are very popular in Japan. As Japan is on an active tectonic fault, it’s prone to earthquakes and has volcanic activity. One of the upsides of this is a significant number of hot springs all over the place. As in most places these are used for vacation and therapeutic purposes. So popular are hot springs that their water is sometimes trucked many miles by road tanker. For example, there’s an Onsen near the Nippon 2007 site (The Pacifico Yokohama) which receives its water daily by road from the Atami Onsen down the coast.

I visited the Atami Onsen  (Atami Train Station picture) for a staff meeting of the Nippon 2007 worldcon over the weekend. There’s a  bunch of pictures from the banquet and the party on the gallery. Unfortunately, since I have eczema, taking baths in very hot water is not a good idea, so I didn’t try out the hot baths myself. For those worried about reports of mixed bathing facilities, the vast majority of Onsen do NOT have mixed bathing. For some reason, possibly to do with differences in the facilities or the feed of the water, the hotel we were in would switch around which of the two facilities was male and which female. If visiting these places without a Japanese reader (and the signs used there were not so simple as just otoko/onna, but used more complicated kanji signs which I wouldn’t have been happy relying on, although I was fairly sure I could tell which was which) then you should ask the staff.

It was still an interesting experience. The staff shared “Tatami Rooms” with up to five to a room. These Tatami Rooms consisted of two parts: a really traditional tatami room which contained floor level seats (backs and seats but no legs) and table, during the day, and which were re-set to futons in the evening. The other half contained two western style single beds. So if you’re going as a couple , you could have one such room and it would serve as a suite. Don’t expect that to be cheap, however. I’m not sure what the split was between the room and the banquet, but it was about Y13000 for me to share the room and pay for the banquet.
One of the rooms the staff were using  was given over to a “Tatami Room Party” on the Saturday night. It was still going very strong when I bailed at 3am. Room parties look like they’re alive and well and living in Japanese fandom.