If the Week Had an Eighth Day
The concept of this hotel is just one line.
“If a week had eight days, what kind of inspiration would people find there?”
Monday through Sunday are days you spend for someone else. The eighth day exists only for the two of you.
Four minutes on foot from the south exit of Chigasaki Station, between a shopping street and quiet houses, that “eighth day” suddenly appears: a white four-story building, palm trees, an oval pool at its center. A single Californian motel, somehow dropped in front of a Japanese local train station.
Three Reasons to Choose This Place
1. Swimsuits On — So You Can Go In Together
Almost every onsen and sauna in Japan is separated by gender, and you bathe naked. You travel together, and then spend the best hour of the day apart.
The sauna at 8HOTEL is mixed-gender, swimsuits required. It’s an authentic Finnish-style sauna produced by the sauna brand TTNE, with self-service löyly — pour the water yourself, whenever you like. You can sit side by side in hinoki-scented steam.
“We want to experience Japanese sauna culture — but we don’t want to be split up.” For that wish, this is one of the best answers Japan currently has.
2. Tattoos Are Probably Fine
Most onsen, sento and saunas in Japan turn away guests with tattoos. It’s the rule that surprises — and disappoints — foreign travelers the most.
Here it’s different. Officially, the guidance is to cover up with a rash guard or a cover sticker. But on the day we visited, several people were in the pool with their tattoos uncovered. We didn’t hide ours either, and nobody said a word. This is not a place that polices it strictly.
Rules are rules, of course — if you’re worried, bring one cover sticker. But you don’t have to give up on Japanese sauna culture just because you have ink on your arm. Not here, at least.
3. The Cold Bath Is a Pool
You step out of the sauna, take a 13°C cold shower, and slide straight into the pool in front of you.
Japanese saunas have a mizuburo — a small, deep tub of cold water. Here, that role is played by a big pool under the open sky. Float on your back and your ears sink below the surface; the sound disappears. Then it arrives — the sensation Japanese people call totonou, “coming into balance.”
The water is around 17–19°C depending on the season, colder on midwinter days.
How a Day Here Goes
15:00 — Check-in
Change into your swimsuit in the room, throw on a gown and walk down to the pool. The corridors and stairs are open-air, and the whole hotel wraps around one courtyard. From your room to the water, all you wear on your feet is a pair of beach sandals.
15:30 — Sauna → Cold Shower → Pool → Poolside
Repeat two or three rounds. Sun loungers line the poolside. Don’t rush. If you rush, totonou never comes.
17:00 — Something Light by the Pool
Food and drinks from the lounge can be enjoyed poolside — there’s sparkling wine, too. The ice cream from Plenty’s, a beloved Chigasaki institution, will change your life a little when eaten after a sauna.
19:00 — Dinner Is Outside the Hotel
This is the important part: this hotel deliberately has no restaurant.
“We want you to have dinner at a local place.” To give back to the neighborhood, the hotel runs no dining facility of its own and instead points you to nearby spots the staff love. That has been the policy since the day it opened.
In other words: where you spend your Chigasaki night is up to you.
21:00 — Night Pool
At night the pool is lit up. After 21:00 is quiet time — lower your voice, and float.
7:00 the Next Morning — Morning Sauna
The sauna opens at 6:30. The empty morning pool is the quietest moment of the day.
8:00 — Breakfast
Three kinds of daily soup, generous with Shonan vegetables, with free refills. For the main, choose a hot dog or bread. A morning spent sipping soup in a gown over your swimsuit.
11:00 — Check-out
The shared areas stay open to you after check-out. Leave your bags and go to the sea one more time.
Dinner: Where to Spend Your Chigasaki Night
Within a few minutes’ walk of the hotel are places you will never find in Tokyo’s tourist districts.
Masugen — Founded in 1965, right by the station’s south exit. An izakaya full of smoke and voices, where locals come every night. The specialty is manshu-yaki. There is no English menu. That’s exactly the point.
Sumibi Sakaba Pika Pika — A yakitori house in a renovated old folk home. On a fine day, ask for the veranda seats. A long list of skewers and a solid lineup of local sake.
Trattoria Gatakeeji — Three minutes from the station. Serious meat dishes and a real wine list, for the night mid-journey when you miss “the taste of home” just a little.
Reservations recommended for all three. Ask the front desk — they can sometimes call ahead for you.
To the Sea: What Lies Beyond the Hotel
Chigasaki sits at the heart of the area called Shonan — for Japanese people, practically a synonym for surfing, music and summer itself.
The hotel can shuttle you to Southern Beach by tuk-tuk (weather permitting). There are rental bicycles, too. Borrow a beach parasol and a picnic set, and you can go to the sea empty-handed.
Once you reach the water, you don’t have to do anything. On a clear day, Mt. Fuji stands beyond the horizon.
You Can Come Without Staying the Night
There are day-use plans that come with a room. Keep your Tokyo hotel and come to Chigasaki just for the sauna and the pool. Day use runs 12:00–16:00 (up to 4 hours), night use 18:00–23:00 (up to 5 hours), and for a limited period there’s a 12:00–24:00 plan of up to 12 hours.
Every plan includes a 13m² standard room, with unlimited access to the sauna and pool. Prices vary by plan and season.
No swimsuit? No problem. BILLABONG swimwear rents for 1,000 yen. Beach sandals, too.
Sunday mornings mean yoga. A 60-minute lesson from 9:00 (max 6 people). From May to October there’s also SUP yoga on the pool itself (30 minutes, max 3 people). Book at the front desk by the day before.
August 8, 2026: A Once-in-a-Lifetime “Day of Eights”
August 8 in Reiwa year 8 — the one day when three eights line up. 8HOTEL is throwing the “888 DAY & NIGHT PARTY.”
The day belongs to Chigasaki: a DJ at the poolside, an aufguss master waving towels in the sauna, BBQ smoke rising. At night the party moves to the sister property, 8HOTEL SHONAN FUJISAWA, with a market of Shonan brands and a night party where sauna and music cross.
If you’re in Japan this summer, put this date in your calendar.
Before You Go
No food or drink inside the sauna or the pool. Poolside is fine. Entry while drunk is not allowed.
No diving head-first. The pool isn’t deep.
Quiet time after 21:00. The rooms surround the courtyard, so every voice reaches every room.
Rooms are compact. 33 rooms in total: singles at 13m², twins at 22–24m². The room is for sleeping — life here happens around the water.
Photos are allowed. A rare facility where photography is permitted everywhere, sauna included. Just don’t photograph other guests.
Essentials
| Name | 8HOTEL CHIGASAKI |
| Address | 18-35 Saiwaicho, Chigasaki, Kanagawa 253-0052 |
| Access | 4 min walk from the south exit of JR Chigasaki Station / approx. 54 min from Tokyo Station, 60 min from Shinjuku |
| Phone | +81 467-55-5175 |
| Rooms | 33 (27 singles, 4 twins, 2 kings) |
| Check-in / out | 15:00 / 11:00 |
| Sauna | 6:30–23:30 (swimsuits required, mixed-gender, self-service löyly) |
| Pool | 6:30–23:00 (quiet time after 21:00) |
| Breakfast | 7:00–11:00 (last order 10:30) / 1,500 yen |
| Swimsuit rental | 1,000 yen (BILLABONG) |
| Website | https://chigasaki.8hotel.jp |
| @8hotel_chigasaki |
The eighth day is a day with no plans.
Float in the water, look at the sky — that alone can be the whole day.
Chigasaki is that kind of town.
Want a local to walk these streets with you? We design small, unhurried tours around what you actually want to see — tell us what you’re curious about and we’ll build the map.
