I finally went to Kusatsu in Gunma Prefecture, Japan.
When I was hospitalized in a university hospital due to an accident last year, someone gave me a newspaper, the weekend section of which reported on the black hot springs (onseng) of Japan. It was the first time I was hospitalized, I felt so confined and tired that I wanted to get out as quick as possible and stay in that hot spring for the same amount of time I stayed in the hospital.
Then one day, my friend whom I haven’t seen for a long time came to see me in the hospital. She had helped me settle in Korea when I had come back to Korea from the U.S of 20 years, she had prayed for me and given me love. I talked about the onseng of Japan, hot spring to her and she told me that Pastor Ha Yongjo stayed in Kusatsu onseng Japan when his end was near. She told me, his wife published a book titled “Springtime of Kusatsu” And later I read the touching memoirs.
As Japan is situated on a volcanic island, thousands of hot springs are scattered throughout Japan. It hasn’t been long since I found out that there are special hot springs for healing. There are some in Aomori, the northernmost part of Japan where my mother’s poetry monument stands. Kusatsu is one of those hot springs for healing.
It was quite a long way to go back and forth from Tokyo because it took three hours to get there by train, bus and a cab. I couldn’t do it in one day so I stayed in a Onseng Ryokan with my Japanese fans, Amy and her mother.
As it was the end of March, I thought it would be spring in Kusatsu, but Kusatsu is located north of Tokyo and snow was piled up on the ground. The sun was shining but the snow was flying from the mountains. People skied in the mountains. Kusatsu has a population of 3,000 but 3 million people come to that hot spring every year, a thousand times as many as the town population.
Yubatake, the hot water field, is located at the center of town. Hot spring water of 23,000 drums, the highest yield of water a day in Japan, springs out of Yubatake. It is a spectacular sight. People are bathing their feet in the onseng and there are long line for the performance spots.
Samurai in the Edo period came here when they were wounded. Kusatsu became more popular when Dr. Erwin Von Balz who came from Germany in 1876 and studied pathology, internal medicine and gynecology at Tokyo University of Medicine for 26 years, made the superiority of Kusatsu hot spring known to the world. Kusatsu onseng have the benefits of healing skin diseases, wounds and eye inflammations. People say that you can heal anything here except for lovesickness. Dr. Balz is the one who coined the name “Mongolian spot” Kusatsu onseng is considered as the best one, it is the most famous hot onseng in Japan.
Kusatsu is at an altitude of 1,200 meters.The vegetables in Kusatsu grow in the mountains. They say that Shinare Mountain has a variety of hiking courses but I couldn’t visit them due to my tight schedule though.
It is a global trend that leisure and tourism industries are flourishing, as human life is no longer filled with just labor. With its ryokans and stores that have traces of the Edo period, one can feel an old sentiment here, add high quality hot spring water to all that, it is no wonder this small town has gained such popularity. The mother in law of Pastor Ha and my mother had studied in Tokyo together in the early days, the Pastor came running to pray for my mother whenever she was but a little bit sick.
I am looking up at the clear sky, thinking of Pastor Ha’s simple figure and how he had rested at this nice place at the end of his life for a long time and wonder why God always take a good person from us first. | 
