Genkai Onsen Karatsu
- Location
- Karatsu, Saga Prefecture, Japan
- Water type
- sodium chloride
- Temperature
- 41 °C
- pH
- 7.3
Water profile
Relaxing — deep, immediate muscle release.
Loaded with major ions — the essential minerals (Ca, Mg).
Dense, salty water — you float without effort.
Karatsu Onsen is situated in Karatsu, a castle city on the coast of Saga Prefecture facing the Genkai Sea, home to the magnificent Karatsu Castle (Maizuru-jo, or 'Dancing Crane Castle') whose white tower rises above the sea on a rocky pine-forested promontory in one of Kyushu's most picturesque castle settings, and celebrated annually for the Karatsu Kunchi — one of Japan's three great festival processions, during which fourteen enormous and elaborately crafted hikiyama floats in the shapes of legendary creatures, fish, and warriors are paraded through the streets to the shore in a spectacle of craftsmanship and community pride dating to the early Edo period. Karatsu is also famous as a center of Karatsu-yaki ceramic tradition, one of Japan's most celebrated pottery styles brought to Kyushu by Korean potters captured during Toyotomi Hideyoshi's invasions of Korea in the 1590s, and for the spectacular Nijinomatsubara (Rainbow Pine Forest) stretching five kilometers along the coast. The onsen draw on silica-rich geothermal springs in this culturally rich coastal city of castle heritage, ceramic art, and festival tradition.