Category: Accommodation

So, final accommodation. Another western hotel, though very nice indeed. The hotel has a massive Godzilla head statue of the terrace of the 8th floor (shameless cash in?) and is generally pretty huge.

Service for the short time we were there was good, rooms seem big by Japanese standards, and beds comfortable. Views were incredible from our rooms on the 19th and 24th floors.

We left too early to sample breakfast, so there’s not a lot more to add!

Up a mountain. Check. Near a big cemetery in a forest where the trees are between 200 and 600 years old. Check. The most sacred place in Japan. Check. Living with monks. Check. Eating vegan food. Check. Being woke up for a 6.30am morning service followed by much burning of sticks and banging of drums. Check.

You visit Koyasan to experience all these things, and it doesn’t disappoint. Our accommodation, in the guest quarters of the Ekoin Temple, was simple – just a room (two in our case) and a toilet, shared shower and baths. However, it’s been well kept and is probably one of the tidiest traditional locations we’ve stayed in.

Food is interesting. Actually, it’s not. Sorry, but it really is very plain and uninspiring, unless you’re into pickles, unidentifiable vegetables and rice. And there’s not enough. It’s just not to western tastes I guess.

But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t an amazing place to stay. It was, and we knew what we might be expecting. There’s a convenience store the other end of town, a brilliant local restaurant selling amazing katsu on the main crossroads, another local place selling udon dishes nearby and a little cafe directly opposite Ekoin. Use these to supplement meagre monk rations and it’s all good!!

The monks were incredibly friendly, though rubbish timekeepers. To say they have a set routine every day is a bit of an exaggeration…. It’s tough timings, meaning one day we were taken to breakfast 50 minutes late. That’s more than 2 hours after being woken for morning service. Oh well!

A brief stay on Osaka required little more than beds, lucky as that’s all we got! The Mystays Dojima was pretty much identical to our previous Mystays visit, even the Wi-Fi password was the same!

Rooms were functional – beds were comfortable, memory foam pillows again, the bathroom was a single unit and breakfast was normal and dull – though the restaurant was in a windowless room, seating no more than 30 people and was attended to by an old chap who was quite friendly.

Little more to add!

For our next Ryokan we travelled to Miyajima island, just off the coast of mainland Japan near to Hiroshima. A multi-part journey from Kyoto (taxi, Shinkansen, local train, ferry and car was needed, but it was well worth the effort. The Watanabe Ryokan was billed as being the highest quality accommodation – it is certainly of a very high standard. Catering for only 3 room (6 guests) it felt a lot more family-run than previous lodgings.

Rooms are huge, with en-suite facilities, each with a cypress bath, and a balcony with seating.

On arrival we were collected from the port by our hosts, and as our paperwork was filled in we were served cold green tea, a cold/frozen wet flannel and a snack.

The food was excellent. Kiseiki meals which weren’t too extreme, slightly different courses for the kids where the adult option was challenging (fish head or caviar, for example) and service in a personal dining room.

Location was excellent, found just outside the village centre and away from the majority of tourists, and very close to the beautiful Daishoin temple complex. And with generous lifts being provided to and from the port, there was little concern for the 15 minute walk!

All in all, a fantastic Ryokan, with amazing English-speaking hosts, where guests are very well catered for.

For four nights in the Gion district of Kyoto we stayed in a Machiya (town house). Basically a little house, it was nice to be out of a hotel or Ryokan and have a space to ourselves for a change.

The Machiya is located down a tiny alleyway, alongside another similarly modest property occupied by a man who seemed to spend all his time outside his front door smoking and coughing up his lungs. He needs to stop.

Inside it’s a tiny maze of rooms, some hidden (ninja-style). The main room is 6 tatami mats big (6-jo). The tatami mat is the way the Japanese measure room size, and it’s literally a flooring mat 1.653 square metres made from rush and cloth – think a smooth wicker surface.

Furnished only with a table and 4 floor chairs, a pair of futons were the adults’ sleeping arrangement each night. Sadly the mattress was nowhere near as comfortable as others we’d experienced so we had to call for help and a second mattress. To be honest it was still inadequate – they need to invest in far better futon mattresses!!

Off the main room are the kitchen, a large store cupboard and the main bathroom – all hidden behind 4 huge moving screens. Very clever.

Upstairs is a western-style bedroom (real beds for the kids) and a toilet, with another toilet downstairs for the adults. There is also a 2-jo secret room – we used it to store luggage!

The property also had a tiny garden – enclosed in a courtyard, which can be seen from the bath!

Location was ideal, being very close to an underground station, a little shop, the tourist area of Gion and huge numbers of restaurants – however not so close it was noisy.

Overall, a really nice property – the futon mattresses were truly rubbish though, and the owners need to speak to the futon suppliers at the Fujioto Ryokan in Tsumago.

Back to another Western-style hotel that wouldn’t look out of place anywhere in the world. Into a cool, pristine lobby where Guest Operatives (or Receptionists in old money) spoke reasonable English (better than our Japanese, of course) and invited us after checking in to raid the toiletries store – we duly obliged and nicked some body sponge cloth thingies.

Rooms are tiny – so small we had to dump 2 of our cases in the kids’ room, there was so little space. The en-suite bathrooms were miniscule, I couldn’t stand up inside, making showering a challenge. We thought they were very much like those used on cruise ships, pre-fabricated and fitted out before being hoisted into place the building/ship constructed around them.

Breakfast was had twice, both days causing some amusement – ranging from Coco Pops in tiny bowls you might put kids jelly into (I found much bigger bowls at the other side of the restaurant to carry a greater load of chocolatey puffed rice and WHOLE milk) to what looked like something you’d find in your Chinese takeaway. Funnily enough we opted for familiar things. Not an amazing food selection though.

The beds were comfortable, with no bean bag pillows – instead a choice between a feather filled pillow or a proper memory foam option. Voted accommodation with best pillows so far!

Location was excellent, being only 500m from Kanazawa station and the start/end of the bus loop line.

Otherwise a non-descript hotel, just somewhere to sleep and clean!

Our second Ryokan was a very different experience to the first. A proper guest house with paper walls, shared wash facilities and a very welcoming owner, found in a town which looked (from the main street) as it would have done when travellers hundreds of years ago used the Nakasendo Highway, a trail stretching from Tokyo (or Edo as it would have been known as then) to Kyoto.

The rooms again were very simple with tatami mat floors, futons (which even I would admit are incredibly comfortable) and bean bag pillows (which are noisy when you move your head so less comfortable!) The restaurant again had dividing curtains between tables, and of course all shoes to be left at the door! They found me some enormous woollen slippers – much better than the normal ones that just don’t fit!

Dinner and breakfast were amazing. Even the kids ate the majority of each 8 course affair. The owner and waitress took time to explain the food, all locally sourced. Best was the little chicken dumpling in an otherwise mildly tasting soup. The beef was pretty good too!

Our favourite accommodation so far, the only negative for me was the height of the ceilings – not really something our Japanese hosts would be troubled by!!

Set in a beautiful and seemingly remote location outside the postal town of Tsumago, this Ryokan was, I think, the posh end of the scale. Rooms had ensuite facilities, it was more like a boutique hotel than a guest house. On arrival our host asked our plans, talked us through the hike we were undertaking the next day, then took us for a tour of the Ryokan walking backwards (him, not us) the whole way! The same host served our meals. Service was excellent.

A proper hot spring onsen – actually two, one for each gender – was the highlight alongside the food which was extraordinary.

Both dinner and breakfast were traditional affairs – multi-course with what we are now realising is either tourist torture or is genuinely local cuisine. Horse meat – enough said. The Wagu need was amazing, as was the Sushimi.

The only downside was the general decor. It was very dated and a bit scruffy. If only I’d had my wood polishing kit with me….

Given we’re staying in so many different places, I thought it would be good to review each – mostly so our agent, Tim, can see what we thought!!

First then, the Citadines Central Shinjuku in Tokyo. We had 4 nights in a pretty soulless but otherwise pleasant hotel located in the Shinjuku area of Tokyo. Shinjuku reminded us of the Leicester Square/Soho area of London – neon lights, strip-joints, seedy restaurants, bars, and lots of tourists! It felt pretty safe – though the walk back to the hotel late one evening was different as some of the “gentleman’s clubs” (which were labelled ‘Tourist Information Centres’) now had bouncers of an African origin sat outside.

The hotel itself was of a typically Western style, rooms very small but functional, very clean, beds comfortable – though who designs pillows that have a bean bag on one side? Just weird. We had two rooms – our double was tiny, with a pretty rubbish bath/shower affair; the kids’ twin room was bigger and had a wetroom – so we all used that! The view out of the windows was of a huge and sprawling bar area – hundreds of tiny bars that demand an entry fee – and a large red shrine!

The staff were exceptionally helpful, their English was amazing and nothing was too much trouble for them. Breakfast was the only meal we had, it was a mixture of bacon, eggs, fish, toast, limited cereals, and pork dumplings.

The nearest Metro station was a couple of blocks, 5 minutes, away by foot. Aim for the Tiffany’s store and it’s right outside!

Overall – 4/5 – a great base from which to explore Tokyo and start the adventure.