Ibusuki Sand Bathing Tour
1.Places
Ibusuki is located at the southern edge of Kyushu island, 1 hour drive to the south from Kagoshima city. It is one of the most typical tourist spots in Japan along with neighboring Chiran.
Thanks to its warm climate, location, and tropical atmosphere as well as various tourism resources, it was once called “Hawaii of the Orient” and was crowded with honeymoon couples.
(1) Sand Bathing (soak in the hot beach sand)
You will explore deeper Japanese culture here by experiencing the very unique bathing habit. There are 2 sand bathing spots in Ibusuki, both of them are big enough for comfortable bathing.
What you are supposed to do is just simple, change your clothes to Yukata (light cotton kimono) and lie on the designated place in the beach. Then the staff carefully put hot sand of around 50℃ on your body until fully covered. You will sweat a lot in about 10 minutes, and feel so relaxed. It’s enough to get soaked in the sand for about 15 minutes, but some people fall asleep while listening to the sound of sea waves.
This sand bathing has been famous for hot spring cure since more than 300 years ago, and is said to have 3～4 times more benefits compared to ordinary hot springs, very good for your health and skin such as neuralgia, rheumatism, atopy, lumbago, joint pain, fracture, asthma, diabetes, anemia, bad blood circulation, total body beauty, etc.
At the end of the bathing, you will wash sand and sweat off in the public bath.
(2) Tosenkyo restaurant for lunch
After this fantastic experience, you will visit the cool and refreshing restaurant in the forest, serving Nagashi Somen (thin wheat noodle in the flowing water), upon your request. It is one of the best summer resort restaurant in Kagoshima, opens all through the year, and gather more than 200,000 people every year.
You will feel Somen is very tasty and refreshing because it flows in the clean and cold water which has been chosen as Select Best Waters of Japan.
Serving style of Somen here is a bit different from that in Takachiho Gorge mentioned in Kumamoto Tours. Somen noodle here is flowing in pure water rotating in a special device (circle gutter).
The recommended menu is the set meal of rice ball, salt-grilled trout, carp miso soup and carp sashimi with Somen.
(3) Kaimon-Dake mountain
Kaimon-Dake is the one of famous mountains in Japan, and usually called “Satsuma (old name of Kagoshima) Fuji” for its beautiful cone shape like Mt. Fuji. It stands at the southern edge of Satsuma Peninsula. We can enjoy this beautiful scenery while driving around Ibusuki.
(4) Satsuma-Denshokan
This is the museum specializing in the history and culture of Kagoshima. Especially, the exhibition of Satsuma pottery is splendid! You will be so fascinated by the beauty of pottery which were exported to European countries and highly valued more than 100 years ago.
This museum was open in 2008. It is proud of not only the exhibits but also its magnificent building, Japanese traditional garden and high quality restaurant. For detail, please check the following web page,
2.Sample Timetable
(duration: 4.5 hours)
9:00 pickup in Kagoshima city
10:00～11:00 Sand Bathing
11:30～12:30 lunch at Tosenkyo
13:30 farewell in Kagoshima city
We can mix with other tour in Kagoshima and make one day tour.
3.Price
(1) Guiding fee: 6,000 yen per person
(2) Transportation: shared by tour member
* Big group discount and children discount are available. Please make contact with us.
* Lunch and admission fees are not included above.
4.Lunch
We can provide 2 options.
(1) We take you to Tosenkyo restaurant mentioned above.
(2) We can invite you to our house and serve homemade dishes with traditional cultural
demonstrations, or prepare lunch box that you eat outside. Please refer to "Special Treat" tag.