My great love here in Japan is not a woman, nor the cuisine, nor the ancient aesthetic culture, but onsen—the natural hot springs.

Everything about them is magical. There are hot spring areas all over the Japanese archipelago. In fact, this country is so volcanically active, it’s said that if you dig down 1000 meters just about anywhere, you can create your own hot spring (my landlord has not let me try this, however). Each onsen is connected to its natural and cultural surroundings in unique ways—some are hidden within dense, wooded mountains with autumn leaves or winter snow drifts, others on the rocky shores of the sea, or next to a foggy lake, or along a rolling river where the sounds of water enhance the sense of communion with the environment as you soak.

Leaving Nagasaki, I took a bus out to the nearby onsen area of Unzen. The whole town smelled of sulfur, as it’s pretty much built right on top of the piping-hot natural springs themselves—the jikoku (literally, hell—pictured below). Thankfully, the pipes cool the water considerably as its being pumped to the hotel baths. Sulfur baths are milky white, and feel amazing. For obvious reasons, bringing a camera into the baths themselves isn’t allowed, but hopefully you can get a sense of the surrounding areas.

Unzen also has quite the ignoble history. The scalding, sulfurous water was used to torture Jesuit missionaries in the 16th century after Christianity was banned in Japan. Did you see Martin Scorcese’s adaptation of Silence? Go watch Silence. Anyway, that’s all long past, and now there’s a famous red brick church (not pictured), as well as stone memorial dedicated to the Christian martyrs among the steaming springs.

The next stop on my journey was yet another onsen spot: Kurokawa. The name translates literally to “Black River,” and is home to a quaint little village tucked within the mountains, that as far as I could tell, is comprised entirely of onsen hotels. This was overall perhaps my favorite onsen area to date. So many gorgeous and varied baths within a short walk of each other (there was one in a cave!), the food was excellent, there was a great little café where I had coffee and mochi, and in addition to the wide open-air bath, my hotel also had a number of private baths, each with its own unique style. It was paradise.

Next up: part 4. Kagoshima and Yakushima—the final leg of my 2018 Kyushu trip.