Sakura-yu Bath, Yamaga (山鹿温泉 さくら湯) さくら湯
Rebuilt in 2012 from a paper model: nothing was left of the original drawings.
In 1640 Hosokawa Tadatoshi, the first lord of the Kumamoto domain, had a rest house (ochaya) built at Yamaga near the spring, and according to the domain's records invited Miyamoto Musashi, the swordsman, to the opening. In 1872 two local notables financed a major renovation that turned it into a public bath; in 1898 a master carpenter from Dōgo, the famous hot-spring town of Shikoku, added the curved-gable entrance, and in 1929 an extension to the south completed the cross-shaped plan with two entrances, one to the north and one to the south. After a major fire in 1971, demolition began in 1973 for an urban redevelopment: in 1975 the bath was set up again inside a modern building and stayed open until November 2009. The drawings were gone: the blueprint was a paper lantern (山鹿灯籠, the craft Yamaga is known for) made before the demolition, tile by tile, by the master lantern maker Tokunaga Masahiro. The bath reopened on 23 November 2012, and the tourism website presents it as the largest bath in Kyūshū in the architectural style of the Edo period.
Kumamoto
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