Obama Bay Onsen Wakasa
- Location
- Obama, Wakasa, Fukui Prefecture, Japan
- Water type
- sodium chloride
- Temperature
- 39 °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.
Obama Bay Onsen Wakasa is a coastal hot spring in Obama, a historic city on Wakasa Bay in Fukui Prefecture, Japan, a city that gained unexpected international attention in 2008 when its citizens enthusiastically campaigned for US presidential candidate Barack Obama — whose name exactly matches the city's — leading to a heartwarming transatlantic cultural connection and an annual Obama-san Obama Festival. The naturally chloride-sodium spring waters here, characteristic of the Wakasa Bay coastal geothermal zone, are valued for their warming and skin-softening saline properties, offering bathers in this historic maritime city a restorative soak by the Japan Sea whose mackerel was historically transported on the famous 'mackerel road' all the way to Kyoto's imperial kitchens. Combining Obama City's unique American election connection, its historic role as the seafood supplier for Kyoto's imperial table via the Wakasa Kaidō, and the therapeutic comfort of genuine coastal saline hot spring bathing, this onsen offers one of Japan's most warmly memorable thermal experiences.