# Natsuse Onsen

In the mountain interior of Semboku, well beyond where the road feels purposeful, there is a single inn. Natsuse Onsen has existed in one form or another since 1904, though the present incarnation — reopened in 2005 under the name Towasure, meaning roughly "to forget the capital" — carries its history lightly. The waters here are sodium sulfate in composition, clear and drinkable, the kind that asks something of the body rather than merely soothing the surface of it.

To reach Towasure requires intention. From Tazawako Station, a taxi ride of thirty minutes through narrowing terrain. From Kojiro, fifteen. There is apparently even a helicopter route from Akita Airport, which says something about the distance this place keeps from ordinary circulation. The Natsuse Dam sits nearby, and the Dakigaeri Gorge — a prefectural natural park — runs close enough to feel present without imposing. The geography holds the inn rather than decorating it.

What a stay of several nights might offer is not spectacle but accumulation. Each room has its own open-air bath, so the rhythm of soaking becomes private, unhurried, folded into the hours naturally. The sodium sulfate water, which one can drink as well as bathe in, suggests something closer to a recuperative tradition than a luxury one. The inn closed entirely in 2001 and lay quiet for several years before reopening. That pause seems to have clarified something — the place now feels entirely settled in what it is.