Ryokan living

Ryokan is a traditional Japanese inn. We stayed in several, the first one in Hakone. They are all slightly different, but have a lot in common. Ryokan living is a cultural experience of its own, so I decided to place it in a separate story.

This is our room. As you can see, it is beautifully designed with tatami (straw floor) and futons on a platform. In some ryokans, you take your shoes off and get slippers right at the front entrance to the inn, but here - because our room is in an annex - slippers are at the entrance to the room. However, you don't wear slippers on tatami - it is either socks or bare feet.

The design is minimalist. The door on the left leads to our private onsen (hot spring). I'll show it later. Behind the brown armchair, the sliding door leads to a balcony, with another set of slippers... 

... and near the front entrance to the room, there is a bathroom with a pair of its own slippers. Japanese are big on slippers.

They also traditionally take their showers sitting down, which mystifies me - I find it quite uncomfortable - but you are likely to see exactly this kind of wooden bench and bucket in every public onsen you go to (we had those in bigger hotels where we stayed). Here this little shower area is also not near the bathroom/sink in the previous photo, but behind the wooden door I pointed out earlier, at the entrance to the onsen. 

And this is the onsen itself. It is actually very hot, fed by a thermal spring. If you find it too hot, you can add cold water from the tap.

(Here it is again in daylight, next morning. I actually found the futons very uncomfortable to sleep on, so I spent quite a bit of time in the onsen, both at night and in the early morning before breakfast - hey, if you cannot sleep because of not having a proper bed, you can at least enjoy what you do have - which is a mineral hot spring right in your room!)

As you can see, the onsen is an indoor/outdoor type: it is outdoors in terms of not having the outer wall, but it is well protected from the rain - as is the balcony next to it. Hakone climate kind of requires that. Incidentally, later in the night the fog cleared, and this is the view from our balcony.

Now let's discuss ryokan clothing. It is expected that you wear your kimono-like cotton robe, called yukata, all around the ryokan, including to meals. You can also sleep in it. Generally, you get your yukata at check-in (there are several sizes, based on height). The jackets seemingly are all one size, so you'll find them in your room. Also in your room, there will be a basket with a belt for the robe (folded in a pentagon shape) and washcloth and towel.

Here we are, dressed according to tradition, about to go to dinner.

 And here is the dinner itself. Kaiseki dinner is a multi-course meal, very elaborate. 

I took pictures of the menu. You can compare the descriptions with the photos above.

And this is breakfast in the morning. Insane.

(Full disclosure: in other ryokans where we stayed, meals were not always that elaborate. This was the best ryokan of our trip, in every respect except the futons.)

> Day 6