Throughout Japan, hot springs are popular bathing areas. About 3,000 traditional inns (Onsens) are built around the prolific springs. Capybaras are as popular in Japan as the onsens are, so is it any surprise that the capybaras have their own onsens? Capybara onsens have sprung up at every zoo in Japan that has capybaras, and every zoo in Japan has capybaras. Capybara onsens are seasonal, and winter is the season. Every year it gets crazier and there are even more little zoos with capybaras in hot tubs.

This year there is a Live Feed, if you are awake during the Japanese daytime (14 hours ahead of EST.) I’ll follow with some videos and photos just in case the live feed capybaras are asleep. I’m watching while I am writing this post, and no ads for hours! Plus the background chatter makes me feel like I am there while I am looking through these crazy Japanese articles for you.

Traditional baths (for humans) have fragrant citrus called yuzu floating in them. I have also seen oranges, apples, strawberries and even pumpkins floating around with the capybaras!

Yuzus are gigantic and release their fragrance in the warm water.

Here are the “canned” videos I promised you. The capybara onsens are a favorite of mine, so you can find lots of vintage onsen videos in some of my old blog posts. Nothing beats the live feed, though.

Because my daughter took Dobby’s book to a recent sales event and sold out all of the copies I gave her, I now have an unabashed sales pitch for you. These are print-on-demand so check their shipping window if it is going to be a holiday gift. If you need a signed copy from me, it will cost you $15 plus shipping. You can request that via the Ask Dobby tab above. Please consider an online purchase from your local indie bookshop, or mine. If you must support Amazon, the link is here.

Dobby’s Book

We now return you to our regular programming.

Here‘s one more video for which I have no explanation. There are more good videos on the following websites. Sometimes I can’t embed them here for you, and of course, none of them are in English. Have fun!

https://www3.nhk.or.jp/shutoken-news/20221126/1000087076.html

https://www3.nhk.or.jp/lnews/kanazawa/20221123/3020013391.html

https://newsdig.tbs.co.jp/articles/-/212063

If you want to discover your own articles, here is “capybara onsen” in Japanese: カピバラ温泉 Copy and paste that into your browser and see what happens! The first four figures (カピバラ) are the word for capybara, you’ll recognize that throughout the articles I linked to. Your first word in Japanese! It’s pronounced the same as in English, except way faster, and you can hear it throughout the videos. The last two characters are the onsen (温泉) part, the first one looks like a tiny bath house!

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My sincere apologies for the lack of photo credits. I can’t figure it out. If I noticed Japanese writing under the photo, I included it in the screenshot, but it may or may not include a photo credit. I will happily add them if you tell me who to credit.