Japanese-style Accommodations (Ryokan and Minshuku)

Japanese love to travel. There's a tradition of travel within Japan that goes back centuries. During one period, the Shogun required the nobility to live in Tokyo every other year. This meant that entire courts traveled to and from Tokyo on a regular basis. An entire industry of travel accommodations developed to support all of this travel, and the tradition has survived in many different forms.

One form of accommodation is the ryokan. For the modern traveler this means high-service, Japanese-style accommodations. Staying at a ryokan is a non-stop ordeal of eating exquisite food, lounging in hot baths, napping in warm beds, and then getting up and doing it all again. We aren't that tough; that kind of luxury was more than we could handle, but we did stay in Japanese-style rooms in a home, more properly called a minshuku.

In Kyoto

Japanese rooms are simple. The photo above shows the entire room. On the left the blue sheet covers a mattress, futon and blankets for sleeping. They are stored away every day.

Futon laid out for sleeping.

There's a low table in the center, about 12 inches off the floor and two chairs where the seat is on the floor. You sit in the chair with your feet stretched out in front of you. (That's certainly not comfortable for everyone.)

Separated from the main room by a sliding door is a sort-of balcony, with pillows where we could sit. The balcony has windows with curtains. The sliding door is made of light-weight wood and paper; it separates space, but doesn't keep heat in or provide sound-proofing. 

Every room has a special place called a tokonoma, a sacred alcove. This one has a flower and a stone in front of a small screen. It's the focal point of the room. I don't know why, in this case, there's a painting of sumo wrestlers on the left.

And that's it. There are no closets and just a couple of small shelves. Sparse, by western standards. On the other hand, we had to ask, "Why did we bring all this stuff?"

This is all very traditional. We found this photograph of an old room that looks nearly identical to the room we stayed in:

The shelves and storage space on the left are identical, as is the raised alcove on the right.

We stayed in this room for five nights and found it very comfortable. It got cold at night (53 degrees) but we slept under very warm blankets and turned on a space heater in the morning, so we were fine.

The house is owned by an American-Japanese couple who rented out two rooms to guests. (That's the definition of a minshuku.) They cooked western breakfasts (toast, eggs, cereal) and we ate in the dining room with the other guests.

Their kitchen looked very western to my eye; I don't know how typical this is.

The bath is shared, with a separate room for a western-style toilet and another room for tub and shower. I'm still not used to a shower without a shower curtain; the entire room has a tendency to get wet, but that's expected.

The entire bath is tiled. The shower drain is in the floor in front of the bathtub.

Etiquette

When entering a Japanese home, you immediately take off your shoes in the genkan (the foyer) and step up into the entrance.

You put on sandals, which are provided for guests. Unfortunately, my American-sized feet are larger than Japanese-sized sandals, so I mostly went around in stocking feet.

My feet just don't fit.

When you go into the toilet, you take off your sandals and put on sandals that are for the toilet only. Leaving your sandals outside is the way you show that the toilet is occupied.

Both places we stayed had western-style toilets with one modification. When you flush the toilet, water comes out of a spigot into a basin that drains into the toilet tank, filling it up for the next flush. You can use it to wash your hands. The water going into a toilet tank is perfectly clean. It becomes "grey water" which is perfectly fine for flushing the toilet. It's a clever way to conserve water, but I can't ever see it catching on in this country.

Water spigot and basin on top of the toilet tank for washing hands.

There's also a separate sink outside the toilet for washing hands.

One place we stayed had an outside balcony, and wooden slippers were provided just for use on the balcony. (Sadly, they were also too small.)

Keeping warm

Japan can get cold in the winter, but houses don't always have heat. We stayed for two nights in the mountains near Mt. Fuji and it got cold. But Mt. Fuji is a volcano, and there are hot springs all over the place. Walking down the streets at night we could see steam rising from the storm drains. Our ryokan had natural-spring hot baths in the basement. But when they built the place, they didn't bother to heat the rooms! Eventually, they mounted electric heaters on the walls, which we could use...for $1 per hour!

Pay machine at the bottom, remote control for the heat at top.

We had a lovely time in both of the places we stayed. The second place (in Hakone) had had at least one illustrious guest:

Albert Schweitzer

It was run by a mother and daughter; the mother was almost completely deaf and knew almost as much English as we knew Japanese. But they were the sweetest people and we enjoyed them.

Ann and the mother, our host.

These same photos are also available at Japanese Ryokan and Minshuku.