Higashimatsuyama Spa Plus

Higashimatsuyama Spa Plus serves the central Saitama city of Higashimatsuyama, whose position in the Musashino Plateau makes it part of the broad agricultural and residential middle ground of the prefecture that stretches between Tokyo's northern suburbs and the mountain rim of Chichibu. The city contains the ruins of Musashino Kokubunji, one of the provincial Buddhist temples established by Emperor Shomu in the 8th century at the height of the Nara state's effort to create a network of state-sponsored temples across all provinces of Japan, remnants of an imperial religious project that gives Higashimatsuyama an unexpected historical depth. The spa's mineral waters draw from Saitama's generous underground hydrothermal resources, providing therapeutic bathing that serves a community at the productive, if quieter, heart of one of Japan's most important agricultural prefectures.