TAIPEI -- Chu Chien-huei stretches her arms in a hot tub full of orchid petals on a sunny day at Spring City Resort, a hot spring hotel in Peitou, with her 5-year-old daughter at her side.

"The water is smooth and good for the skin," says the 30-year-old Chu, who is staying at the hotel with her sister.

Nearby, 62-year-old Chung Jin-chang, after soaking in the hot spring, relaxes under a jet of cold spring water spewing from a fountain.

"I like (to take the hot and cold springs in turns) because it soothes my shoulder pain and improves blood circulation," Chung says.

Hot springs in Taiwan have long been considered therapeutic, but in recent years they have begun to attract both young and old as a new form of entertainment with a mix of Japanese and Taiwanese tastes.

Built in 1998, Spring City Resort is a popular hot spring resort in Peitou, northern Taipei, boasting 13 indoor baths and eight outdoor tubs, including a Jacuzzi and spas with orchid petals.

"(The hotel's hot spring) is a combination of Japanese and Taiwanese style," says Lyric Tseng, a Spring City Resort spokeswoman. "We are putting tradition (together with) the new."

Unlike in Japan, where nudity is the norm in same-sex bathing facilities, bathers in Taiwan tend to wear swimsuits because the people generally feel uncomfortable being naked in front of others, even among their own sex, Tseng says.

For those who want privacy, the hotel has 13 hot spring baths in separate indoor rooms for families and couples.

In eastern Taiwan, Hotel Royal Chihpen Spa offers a Japanese-style hot spring where visitors can bathe naked and enjoy both indoor and outdoor baths.

"Young people like the outdoor spring and enjoy the scenery . . . mountains and seas . . . as they bathe," says Chen Chun-ting, president of the Taiwan National Hot Spring Association, adding that more people are beginning to bathe naked.

About an hour south of central Taipei is another popular hot spring resort, Wulai, which means hot spring in the tongue of the aboriginal Atayal tribe. Visitors can bathe for free in three pools of different temperatures at Wulai Outdoor Hot Springs.

But of some 137 hot springs in Taiwan, only half have been developed to date, according to the association. Most were developed by the Japanese during their colonial rule, which began in 1895 after the Sino-Japanese War and lasted until Japan's 1945 defeat in World War II.

Hot springs prospered as entertainment sites but gradually fell into decline after Japan pulled out at the war's end.

It was not until the Taiwan National Hot Spring Association was launched in 1998 that such spots were promoted full-scale, with the campaign blitz targeting younger women, Chen says.

In 1999, which the government designated as Taiwan Hot Springs Tourism Year, many spa industry officials visited popular hot spring sites in Japan to learn how they are managed and to gain knowledge on the constituent parts of various hot springs.

Next month, Taiwan will host the Asia Hot Spring Conference, an international gathering cosponsored by the World Health Organization, to exchange views on the hot spring industry in Asia. The hot spring association sees this as a good opportunity to introduce its hot spring spots to tourism and related industry officials from Japan, South Korea, China and Europe who are expected to attend.

Michiko Nomura, a senior official at the Taiwan Visitors Association Tokyo Office, says the hot spring boom can be attributed to Taiwan's growing interest in leisure activities during the past few years when more people have been traveling overseas.

According to Nomura, more Taiwanese tourists -- both young and old -- are coming to Japan, and they enjoy the experience of bathing in the hot springs of Atami, Shizuoka Prefecture, and Hakone, Kanagawa Prefecture.

"But when they return to Taiwan, they find out that there aren't that many entertainment facilities at home," she says.