A Sheraton with a Free-Flowing Natural Hot Spring

During this trip to Kobe, we stayed for three nights at the Kobe Bay Sheraton Hotel & Towers.

The reason I chose this hotel was simple.

It has a free-flowing natural hot spring.

The treatment event in Kobe was scheduled to run from 8:30 in the morning until 5 in the afternoon.

After it was over, I could return directly to the hotel and soak in the hot spring.

With that in mind, we decided to stay for three nights, beginning the day before the event.

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On the day of the event, I worked with each person one by one.

Many of them were people I was meeting for the first time.

I observed their bodies and listened to their stories.

Before I knew it, it was five in the afternoon.

When the event was over, I returned directly to the hotel.

Then I went straight to the hot spring.

As I soaked in the water, the tension that had built up in my body throughout the day slowly began to loosen.

I came back to life.

That is not an exaggeration.

It truly felt that way.

The body of the practitioner becomes tired too.

To observe another person’s body is also to use one’s own.

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The Kobe Bay Sheraton has a natural hot spring supplied entirely by its own source, with the water flowing continuously from the spring.

Guests can wear a yukata and slippers and take a dedicated elevator directly to the hot spring.

Although it is a Sheraton, an international hotel brand, it also feels a little like a traditional Japanese inn.

I had chosen the hotel because I already knew about the hot spring.

But only after staying there did I begin to wonder why the hotel felt so thoroughly Japanese.

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When I looked into its history, I learned that the hotel had been acquired and revived by the Hotel New Awaji Group in 2011.

At the time, it had been operating at a loss.

The obvious approach might have been to attract more business travelers coming to Kobe and Osaka.

But Hotel New Awaji chose a different path.

They brought into the Sheraton what they had learned from running hot spring inns and resort hotels.

They drilled for a new hot spring.

They made it possible for guests to spend time in yukata.

They began using ingredients from across Hyogo Prefecture.

Rather than offering convenience alone, they reshaped the hotel for people who wanted to slow down and spend time there.

Then it made sense.

The hot spring had not simply happened to be there.

It had been placed at the heart of the hotel’s revival.

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The day after the treatment event, my wife and I went to Awaji Island.

We drove around the island, looked at the sea, and ate a bowl of fresh seafood over rice.

We had not made many plans.

We simply stopped wherever something caught our attention and spent the day that way.

We had come to Kobe for the treatment event.

But because of it, my wife and I also found time to visit Awaji Island together.

The boundary between work and rest became a little blurred.

It was not a bad way to travel.

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Hotel New Awaji has also taken over a number of struggling hotels and inns on Awaji Island.

They do not tear everything down and begin again.

The landscape.

The hot springs.

The local food.

The buildings.

They reconsider what each place already possesses and give it a new role.

Revival is not always about adding something new.

Sometimes it means rediscovering how to use what is already there.

The body is a little like that.

When the body is unwell, it does not necessarily mean that everything is broken.

Sometimes it has simply lost access to what it already knows how to do.

Rather than forcing it to become something else, we rediscover what is already present within it.

Then, sometimes, it begins to move again.

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During our three-night stay, I went to the hot spring many times.

I rested in the room, soaked in the water, and returned to the room again.

There was nothing I had to do.

I simply spent time quietly inside the hotel.

There was a free-flowing natural hot spring.

That alone was reason enough to choose this hotel.

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Today, we will spend the day driving back to Chiba.

We will take our time and stop for breaks along the way.

And tomorrow is Miyanagi.

Miyanagi is the day we cut the grass around the shrine.

We will spend the whole day doing it.

From Awaji Island to Kobe.

From Kobe to Chiba.

From treatment to the hot spring.

From travel to cutting grass.

The body that came back to life in the hot spring will now be put to work cutting grass.

It is a rather busy schedule.

But perhaps this is how we return to ordinary life.

By using the body again.