I was a bit early for the dinner party when I arrived in Kure, a port city in Hiroshima Prefecture (where the battleship Yamato was built), so I searched for a local bath house on google maps. At first I thought I'd go to a modern "super sento" or spa, but then I noticed a place called "Aka Biru Onsen" (Red Building Hot Spring) in the general direction of the grilled-meat restaurant that I was heading towards.
Strictly speaking, there is no natural "hot spring" that I know of in Kure City, so the "onsen" is really a glorified bath house, and that is just what I was looking for, a bit of local flavour with a retro feel to it, and about half the price of a "super sento."
You never quite know what you will encounter on the inside of a local public bath, but when I went in the master was friendly in an unassuming way and the baths were just what I was looking for - hot baths, hot baths with water massage jets, a cold plunge pool and a sauna.
For obvious reasons, photography is prohibited inside the bathing area, but this um "very Japanese" YouTube video gives you a flavour of what is behind the curtain of Aka Biru Onsen...
After the bath I had enough time to chill out over a refreshing glass of draft beer, a welcome extra option that you don't often find in a local bath house.
The bathing establishment is on the third floor of the Red Building. The second floor is a games centre but I'm not quite sure what the other floors offer.
When I left, I stopped to photograph the building in the early evening light. The wide angle shot was intended to capture the half moon, but camera-shake turned it into a blob of light in the top left corner... Moon in Leo = fun time, and that is what I had, both at the bath house and with my colleague and his parents at the "yaki-nikku" restaurant that is run by one of our recent graduate students and his family.
It'd been several years since I was last in Kure, but whenever I next return I will certainly head for Aka Biru Onsen!
David Hurley
#InspiredFocus