Miura-yu

Centrally located between Kamiooka Station and Gumiyoji, offers some good water for relaxing those tired bones.
I chose to post about this particular bath house is because of the facilities. I don’t just throw information up there for the sake of posting information. I wanted to highlight a few key features about this bath house that has kept me coming back again and again.

For one, it’s a reasonably prices bath house located in Kamiooka near the Keikyu Line, so it’s convenient. The last time I was there entrance was about 550 yen, towels were an additional cost. It can be reached on foot about a 30 minute walk from the Kamiooka Blue line. There are lockers for shoes only! And then after you enter the changing room you have additional lockers for your belongings. Locker costs 100 yen which you get back after you leave.

So like I mentioned before, the reason for posting this particular bath house is because of the facilities. Namely, the steam room. Not very many bath houses have real steam rooms, most have dry sauna. Steam room is at a moderate temperature making sleeping in it doable, but not recommended.
I do it doesn’t mean you should. And sometimes there’s a cool minty fragrance coming from the heating elements.

Another point I like to bring up is the cool water bath which is situated next to the dry sauna. Many public bath houses have small shallow cold baths. Typically after a sauna session you would want to enter into a cool down bath in order to bring your temperature down. Once done you continue back to the sauna for another session.

The thing with cold baths is that often times they are either too shallow or too small. Here at Miura-yu, the cold bath is quite deep and large. Last time I was there the water was almost chest deep and cold. It felt great actually. Baths like this really help you submerge yourself slowly in and out of the water, rather than a shallow bath where you have to sit all the way down into the water. Another nice thing about this place is that the outdoor baths are all stone. Yellow painted walls create a very relaxing atmosphere, especially on a not so busy monday morning.

I used to frequent this bath houses quite often years ago with the water was clear, like in the picture. Now, the water is brown from a type of tea additive that’s in the water. It’s still good though.