Koganei Onsen

Koganei Onsen is a neighborhood thermal bath in the city of Koganei, a small, well-wooded western Tokyo city whose most celebrated attraction—the Edo-Tokyo Open Air Architectural Museum (Edo-Tokyo Tatemono-en)—preserves over 30 historic buildings relocated from across the Tokyo metropolitan area, ranging from a 19th-century farmhouse and a prewar rice shop to art deco pavilions and the residence of the novelist Ogai Mori, creating a walk-through museum of Tokyo's architectural history in the green setting of Koganei Park. The siliceous mineral waters provide warm bathing in a city where the Koganei Park's cherry blossom festival—one of the Tokyo area's most beloved spring events, drawing visitors from across the metropolis to its 1,700 cherry trees—and the architectural open-air museum's historic streetscape create a particularly rich environment for slow urban exploration. The preserved historical architecture of the Open Air Museum, the spring cherry blossom abundance of Koganei Park, and the warm neighborhood mineral waters give this small western Tokyo city an intimate, historical depth that rewards the curious visitor.