Fish Therapy?

Rurikei Onsen:

Went to Rurikei Onsen near Kyoto recently. The prominent place to soak in the warm water is Rurikei Eco Resort Village. Not the typical countryside onsen that I expected, but a huge relatively new complex. Checking it out for the first time, just inside the front door, I noticed a tank with a sign above ( photo below) that says "Fish Therapy" and below that "Medical Fish". Sounds interesting, right? What could this be, a tank with hundreds of small fish. The sign also says, massaging & relaxing. You sit on the ledge, rollup your pant legs and let the fish nibble on your feet! Sounds a little creepy, but how will it really feel...

To try it you have to first go to the vending machine (photo below) and buy a ticket.

Interesting ticket vending machine system:
Here you can buy tickets to use any service they have from massage, to swimming, to fish therapy, to a one year membership. "Fish Therapy" via "Medical Fish" is ￥1000 (~$10) for 20 minutes.

Click photo below for close up of choices:

The white button on the top right is karaoke (カラオケ)￥1000, the next button below it is fish therapy. There are whole body and local massage tickets for various times, swimming, hot rock therapy....

Okay, with ticket in hand next stop is the fish tank. In English these fish are called "Doctor Fish" among other names, and are from the middle east; Turkey. Apparently useful for treating various skin diseases.

Okay, first one foot in...

Wow! Really creepy feeling. Tickling like a small electrical charge, but it moves around over your skin....

Okay 2nd leg in...

It's hard to resist pulling my feet out. .

20 minutes seems a long time with fish nibbling all over your feet. I wondered if they would eventually bite through the skin, but my feet felt the same after the nibbling session as they did before.

The 2 girls in the video below show 2 extreme reactions people have when putting thier feet in a tank of hungry, flesh eating, fish for the first time; from relaxed to freaked out.

Have you tried fish therapy in your neighborhood?

How to get there: Take the JR Sagano Line from Kyoto to Sonobe. From there you can take a shuttle bus to the resort.