Jozankei Tsuruga Resort Spa Mori no Uta

Mori no Uta is a 54-room resort hotel in the Jozankei hot spring town, about 40 minutes and 27 km by road from central Sapporo, and part of the Hokkaido-based Tsuruga group. Three sculptures by Kineta Kunimatsu, of the Tobiu Art Community in Shiraoi, stand in the entrance. Four detached cottages of 65 sq m each open onto a deck with a 12 sq m open-air bath; two deluxe twins of 63 sq m have an in-room 岩盤浴 (heated stone bed); three rooms have a dog garden on the terrace. Rooms have been non-smoking since 2018.

The water is a sodium chloride spring the hotel describes as neutral and hypotonic. Unusually, it prints how each bath is run: the 大浴場 (indoor communal bath) and the open-air bath are recirculated, filtered, diluted and reheated, while the cottage baths alone are 源泉かけ流し — fed straight from the source, warmed only. Bathing is 11:30–02:00 and 05:00–09:30. There is a Finnish sauna with self-service löyly, rebuilt in December 2022, and a women-only stone-bed spa heated by the spring itself. Tattoos, including stick-on ones, are not admitted to the communal bath.

Dinner and breakfast are buffets, with an open kitchen, a wood-fired pizza oven and a 300-label cellar. A second restaurant serves shabu-shabu courses in semi-private rooms. No meals are served in guest rooms.

Check-in 15:00, 14:00 at the cottages; check-out 10:00. A free shuttle runs three times daily to Makomanai subway station, roughly 30 minutes, booked by phone by 17:00 the previous day.