Visiting a Local Hot Spring for My Birthday

It has been a custom of mine to take the day off on my birthday, whenever it falls on a working day, for the past eight years. Since 2018, it has become my custom to visit a hot spring on my birthday, with the exception of the peak COVID years, and 2024, when I took a short trip to Shizuoka City instead. I’ve twice visited Tenzan Onsen in Hakone, but it’s a long journey from Yokohama, and these days, I dread how crowded the city must have become since the incredible number of overseas tourists began last year.

Instead, I decided to revisit a local bathhouse in the suburbs of Yokohama, located a convenient distance from my home. The closest station to the bathhouse is Tsunashima Station, but there was very little online information about bus routes, so I took a few minutes to figure out the situation. I recalled being able to take a bus from Tsunashima Station’s bus stop in 2023, but there were no buses departing in the direction of the bathhouse location. An additional internet search revealed that buses departed from Shin Tsunashima Station, but finding the spot was no easy task because of the construction work being done. Finally, though, I made it to the bus stop just as a bus headed in that direction pulled in.

By the time I arrived at the bathhouse, soaking in a hot spring was just what the doctor ordered, because I was dressed in my regular light activewear, on an extremely cold February day. I’m not even a huge hot spring lover, in the sense that my body doesn’t handle the high temperatures particularly well. Also, my visits to hot springs are short and sweet. What makes this bathhouse different from others that I’ve visited is the variety of indoor and outdoor baths that it contains. For example, one of the indoor baths contains powerful underwater jets that have a massaging effect on different parts of your body. Overall, the visit to the bathhouse hit the spot.

The next destination was Tressa Shopping Mall, located a reasonable walking distance from the bathhouse. I’m a consummate veteran of visiting shopping malls in Kanagawa, because they are my destination of choice for walking, in both summer and winter. However, Tressa Mall was one of the few I hadn’t visited, because it requires taking a bus to get there, and trains are the main form of public transportation that I use. The mall has an interesting layout, with two halves on opposite sides of a road, connected with walkways. I chose sansai (wild mountain vegetable) udon for a late lunch at the food court, despite McDonald’s being an appealing option, especially on my birthday. Wandering around the mall was pleasant because it was much less crowded than other malls in Kanagawa. I was especially impressed with the Uniqlo and GU stores at Tressa Mall, which were far more quiet and spacious compared to other branches.

Finally, I escaped the winter chill and returned home to have maki zushi rolls for dinner to mark the occasion of Setsubun, which happens at the same time as my birthday each year.

Ming