Bando Onsen

Bando Onsen is located in Bando City, Ibaraki Prefecture, in the Tone River lowlands of southern Ibaraki where the flat agricultural landscape of the Kanto plain extends across rice fields, waterways, and the reclaimed agricultural land of the historic Shimosa highlands east of the Tone River. The siliceous thermal waters here serve a rural agricultural community whose relatively modest profile belies an important historical connection to the Bando Pilgrimage — a circuit of thirty-three Kannon (Buddhist goddess of mercy) temples across the Kanto region, one of Japan's most important pilgrimages, whose thirteenth temple, Anagonji, is located within Bando City. Bathing at Bando Onsen provides a connection to this ancient Kanto Buddhist pilgrimage tradition, combining mineral spring wellness with the spiritual heritage of one of eastern Japan's most important devotional circuits in the flat river plain landscape of southern Ibaraki.