Hanazawa Onsen Ito

Hanazawa Onsen Ito is a thermal facility in Ito City on the northeastern Izu Peninsula of Shizuoka Prefecture, one of the Izu coast's most characterful hot spring resort towns whose thermal springs have been used since the Heian period and whose international historical significance rests partly on the presence here of William Adams, the English navigator known as Anjin-san who became the first Western samurai in Japanese history, serving the shogun Tokugawa Ieyasu and supervising shipbuilding operations on the Ito coast in the early 17th century and whose remarkable story inspired James Clavell's novel Shogun. The Ito coastline combines the subtropical vegetation, volcanic geology, and dramatic Pacific scenery of the Izu Peninsula with the resort character of a long-established hot spring town whose seafood cuisine, particularly the local kinmedai (splendid alfonsino) fish, complements the thermal bathing culture in a destination that draws Tokyo residents for weekend and seasonal breaks. The chloride thermal spring waters of Hanazawa Onsen warm visitors to a city whose layered history — from samurai shipbuilding to modern resort culture — and whose coastal setting at the meeting of subtropical warm-water marine environment and volcanic mountain landscape create an unusually rich and evocative Izu hot spring experience.