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In Kamata,
there are a number of onsen (baths which get their hot water straight
from the bowels of the earth), but too many of them are finding custom
slipping away as the city develops around them, cutting them off by
driving highways through the old neighborhoods.
Kamata Onsen is in the middle of a changing community, too, but it
prospers because it gives everyone what they want. It opens at 10
in the morning (most baths open around 3 in the afternoon), its sauna
is free, and there's after-bath karaoke in the public room on the
second floor. In addition, you can bring in a video to watch with
friends in a little six-seat theater (entrance 500 yen) and the massage
chair is state-of-the-art.
There is a cold bath just large enough for one person and two non-onsen
baths, one a denkiburo (an "electric bath" with a weak current running
through it, for mild titillation). And there are two onsen baths,
both with digital gauges showing the temperature of the water to a
tenth of a degree Centigrade. The onsen water, here as black as gunpowder
tea, leaves the skin very soft. Kamata Onsen is a workmanlike bath
and there is no rotemburo for the local sybarites.
There's beer out the door to the left and around the corner and just
up the road there's a fine little sushi place that does a roaring
business delivering to the bath.
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