Ise Shima Onsen Shima

Ise Shima Onsen in Shima city, Mie prefecture, draws chloride-rich coastal thermal waters on the Ise-Shima Peninsula — Japan's most sacred spiritual geography, where the Grand Shrine of Ise (Ise Jingū) has been rebuilt every 20 years in exactly the same form for 1,300 years in the ancient Shinto ritual of Shikinen Sengū, and where the Ago Bay's pearl cultivation industry was founded by Mikimoto Kōkichi in the 1890s, creating cultured pearl as a Japanese contribution to global luxury culture. The Shima Hanto's coastal hot springs combine chloride marine thermal bathing with the extraordinary marine culture of the Ama women divers, who free-dive without equipment to 15-meter depths in search of abalone, oysters, and sea urchin in a 2,000-year tradition now recognized as UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage. The Shima National Park's Goza White Beach, the multiple-bay views from the Yokoyama viewpoint, and the extraordinary Ise Shrine Inner and Outer complex create Japan's most spiritually resonant and marine-culturally rich coastal thermal destination.