Kinrin Lake

金鱗湖

A small lake fed by both hot spring water and clear spring water. On winter mornings, mist rises across its surface, and carp swim among the water plants. It is the end point and soul of a walk through Yufuin.

Kinrin Lake lies at the east end of Yufuin Onsen's main street, at the end of Yunotsubo Street. The lake is about 400 meters in circumference. Both hot spring water and clear spring water well up from its bed. On winter mornings, when the lake water is warmer than the air, a white mist rises across the entire surface. Together with the trees and small torii gates on the shore, it forms Yufuin's most classic scene. The name comes from the Meiji-era Confucian scholar Mōri Kūsō, who saw the setting sun glinting off the lake like golden fish scales. A trail circles the lake, where visitors can see schools of carp and crucian carp and ducks that are unafraid of people. A small torii gate for the Tenso Shrine stands in the water. On the lake's south shore is the public bath Shitan-no-Yu, more than 150 years old. It has a thatched roof and is a mixed-gender bath. Coin admission is 200 yen, and an open-air pool faces the lake, though it takes some courage to bathe there. On the north shore are Tenjō Sajiki, a café in an old house run by the Kameno-i Bessō inn, where you can enjoy desserts while listening to Baroque music, and Kameno-i Bessō itself, Yufuin's oldest inn. The best time to see the mist is around sunrise in winter, roughly 6:30 to 8:00 a.m. To see it, you need to spend the night in Yufuin beforehand. It appears most often on clear, windless mornings with temperatures near zero degrees Celsius. From the lakeshore and Yunotsubo Street, looking toward Mt. Yufu, the entire basin may be covered in mist. From the Kirigiridai observation deck on the mountainside of Mt. Yufu, you can look down on the 'sea of fog.' The lake is free to visit. Getting there: it is about 25 minutes on foot from Yufuin Station along Yunotsubo Street, or about 5 minutes by taxi. Allow 30 to 45 minutes for a visit. Notes: mornings by the lake are very cold, so dress warmly. Between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m., visitors crowd the lakeside paths. Shitan-no-Yu is a mixed-gender bath with no changing rooms, so those who are uncomfortable with that may choose a hot spring at their inn. The Yufuin Art Museum and the Marc Chagall Museum are within walking distance.

Kinrin Lake

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Places to eat nearby