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An onsen, or hot spring, theme park will open in March in Odaiba, a sparkling, modern neighborhood that’s a weekend mecca on the bay of Tokyo.

The park, Oedo Onsen Monogatari, will re-create Edo City. Founded in 1603, Edo was the seat of the family of military rulers, or shoguns, who controlled Japan for the following quarter-millennium. It grew into the modern Tokyo.

Located on Tokyo Bay in the shadow of the Rainbow Bridge, this theme park will sit next to the area’s roller coasters, Ferris wheels, multiplex theaters and shopping malls.

“There are places everywhere for younger people to enjoy, like Disneyland,” said Yumiko Kato, spokesperson of Oedo Onsen Monogatari. But Oedo Onsen Monogatari, he said, will cater to Japanese tastes and be geared toward adults.

“This can also be attractive to young people,” she said. “The foot bath is the largest in Japan, which can be a place for men and women to meet.”

Built on 7.6 acres, the park will accommodate an onsen facility perfect for day trips.

“It is said in Japan, if you dig 2,000 meters [just more than 6,500 feet] underground, hot water will spring. We found natural gas 1 kilometer (about 3,280 feet) underground,” Kato said, which “made us believe that there are hot springs.”

The company started digging in April and found natural hot spring water at the end of May.

After entering the building, visitors are asked to choose a yukata, or summer kimono. They’re guided into a locker room, then into the history of the feudal Edo period. Even the park’s name means “Edo hot springs tale.”

Visitors get to choose which “route” through Edo they wish to follow: onsen, healing or eating.

The onsen area is separated into baths for men and women. Bathers may choose from among 10 kinds of onsens, including natural, open-air and medicated.

The park also plans to create onsens in which visitors can enjoy famous hot-spring waters from different onsens around Japan. There also will be a section re-creating the provincial home of a daimyo, or feudal lord.

This concept recreates the demand of the shoguns that daimyos spend one year in Edo and the next in their provincial seats — while their families had to stay in Edo, in effect, hostages to discourage coups against the shoguns.

In the healing, or yukata, bathing area, visitors can walk through a riverlike path. It represents the 53 Edo-period stops, or checkpoints, along the main road from Edo to Kyoto, where the emperor lived. The bottom of the footbath is paved with rough stones, meant to stimulate foot pressure points.

A tenet of much Asian medicine is that pressure points on the soles correlate with points in the body; stimulating them is thought to treat illnesses.

The healing area also offers foot massage services and a sauna for a small (as yet undecided) charge.

“This area is for men and women to meet through onsen and become healthy at the same time,” Kato said.

The facility also will offer dining areas with Japanese food. A second-floor cultural center will inform visitors about Edo, including how to make soba, or buckwheat vermicelli.

The admission fee will be 2,700 yen, or about $22. Hours will be 11 a.m. to 5 a.m. The onsen is a minute’s walk from Telecom center station on the Yurikamome monorail line; 400 free parking spaces will be available.

And like all good onsens, a nap room will be provided.

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Hana Kusumoto is a reporter/translator who has been covering local authorities in Japan since 2002. She was born in Nagoya, Japan, and lived in Australia and Illinois growing up. She holds a journalism degree from Boston University and previously worked for the Christian Science Monitor’s Tokyo bureau.

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