Walking Tour and Hot Spring Cooking Combo

Cook your own food in a kettle while touring the famous hot spring town of Beppu Kanna wa Onsen.

Beppu boasts the largest number of hot springs in Japan and has flourished as a center of hot spring culture for centuries. This tour takes you through the back alleyways to numerous hidden points of interest in Kannawa Onsen, a hot spring district of Beppu that has long been a popular destination. 

The highlight of the tour is the chance for you to experience the lifestyles of the local community by selecting your preferred ingredients and cooking your own jigoku-mushi (literally, “hell-steamed dish”), a traditional dish unique to Kannawa Onsen that the locals have enjoyed since the days of the shoguns. It is made by cooking fresh vegetables, meat, or fish in the piping-hot steam of the mineral-rich hot-spring waters using a jigoku (“hell”) kettle. 

From corn, potatoes and mushrooms, to beef, pork and sausage, snow crab, sea bream and shrimp through to dim sum and dumplings, you can steam just about anything you want. (Vegetarians or vegans can leave out the fish or meat for a super-healthy alternative.)

Steaming brings out the deepest flavors of the ingredients while retaining all the nutrients and freshness. Even harder foods such as potatoes become surprisingly tender and tasty when cooked this way.

Access: Take a bus from either the west or east exit of JR Beppu Station (about 20 to 30 minutes) and get off at either Kannawa or Kannawa Onsen stops.  

Beppu Kannawa Jigoku (“Hell”) Steam Tour (Toyokuni Millennium Heritage Tourism Zone)