S P O T ／ SPOT-343

Kajikasō (Abandoned Inn of Sakakibara Onsen)

河鹿荘（榊原温泉廃旅館）かじかそう（さかきばらおんせんはいりょかん）

Kajikasō is the ruin of a hot-spring inn in Sakakibara Onsen, Tsu City, Mie Prefecture—a five-story concrete main building joined by a covered corridor to a two-story wooden annex. Records note it even ran a 1987 television commercial billed as "The Dalliance of the Celestials." Sakakibara is no ordinary spa: it has served as a site of ritual purification before pilgrimages to Ise for some 1,500 years and is identified with "Nanakuri no Yu," the spring named in Sei Shōnagon's "Pillow Book." Yet amid the post-bubble shift in tourism, Kajikasō and the adjacent former national lodge Shihōkaku—both closed—were left behind, leaving a riverside dotted with abandoned inns. It stands directly beside this site's existing entry, Shihōkaku. The building is heavily deteriorated and the grounds are off-limits; viewing should be confined to the exterior, from the public road, in daylight—no trespassing.