Japan’s coldest prefecture offering frozen river open-air soaking this winter

Minus 20-degree weather is the perfect time for an unheated dip, right?

Japan loves a good bath, and at any hot spring the nicest tub of all will be an open-air one. It’s not like the joys of an open-air soak are confined to the warmer parts of the year either, as Japan even has a word, yukimiburo, for the special luxury of sitting in an outdoor hot spring and keeping your body toasty as you look out over snowy scenery.

However, that’s not what’s going on in this photo.

Travel provider Moving Inn has begun taking reservations for its Tokachi Avant program, which provides open-air soaks in the town of Obihiro, Hokkaido Prefecture. Instead of giving you access to a hot spring, though, they simply cut a hole in the ice of a frozen river in Japan’s northernmost, and coldest, prefecture and say “Hop on in!”

How cold is it? Moving Inn says the midwinter temperatures around the site can dip down to minus 20 degrees Celsius (minus 4 degrees Fahrenheit).

▼ But hey, at least they give you a bathrobe to use!

The ostensibly invigorating dip into the frigid water is only half the package, however. The other part is warming your body back up in the mobile sauna room set up on-site.

Once you get too hot, you can hop back into the water to cool yourself off, repeating the cycle to your heart’s content (or your heart’s stoppage, we’re guessing, should the shock of the water send you into cardiac arrest).

150-minute sessions are being offered on December 26 and 27, January 16, 17, 23, and 24, and February 6, 7, 20, and 21, all of which are pretty much guaranteed of having sub-zero weather. Two sessions are offered each day, the first starting at 11 a.m. and the second at 2 p.m., with a maximum of 12 people in each. Reservations can be made online here, but be advised that each session requires a total of at least two reservations in order to take place, so if you’re planning to go you’ll need to keep your fingers crossed that at least one other person is as brave/crazy as you are.

Source, images: PR Times
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