Kintoki-yu, Nagoya public bath

photo by 経済特区 · CC BY-SA 4.0

photo by 円周率３パーセント · CC BY-SA 4.0

The water comes from a 120-metre well, and a bath costs 550 yen, as everywhere in Aichi.

You pay at a raised booth at the entrance, which is the old way of running a public bath, and go in. The water is drawn up from a well a hundred and twenty metres deep: that is what sets this bath apart from the other four that the municipality points out in the city. It is seven hundred metres west of the Shinkansen exit of Nagoya Station, and you can get there on foot.

The Kintoki-yu is a sentō, that is, a neighbourhood public bath, and not a hot spring: the water comes from a well and is heated. It is in Nakamura Ward, west of Nagoya Station, and the well it draws from is a hundred and twenty metres deep. The municipality has entered it as number 90 in its register of local architectural assets, which is a city list and not state protection. In Aichi the price of a bath is the same throughout the prefecture, set by the public bath association: 550 yen from junior high up, 200 yen for elementary school pupils, 100 yen for younger children.

ℹ️ Open 15:40–22:30, closing at 23:00; closed on Thursdays and on 1 January. Shampoo and soap are paid for separately; you can hire the small towel but not the bath towel. There are two parking spaces. Nagoya residents over 65 pay 200 yen on the 5th and the 15th of each month. On Thursdays, when the Kintoki-yu is closed, the Jizō-yu opens in the same ward, 15:00–23:30, ten minutes on foot from the Taikō exit of Nagoya Station: that one closes on Fridays. In Japanese public baths you wash sitting outside the tub before getting in, and you do not wear a swimsuit in the water.

🚉 JR Highway Bus Terminal · 9 min walk

Sources: nagoya-info.jp · aichi1010.jp · aichi1010.jp

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