Winter Break Part 3: Kinugawa Grand Hotel Yume no Toki
Thursday, January 1, 2015
After Nikko we headed to the nearby town of Kinugawa Onsen and checked into our hotel, Kinugawa Grand Hotel Yume no Toki. A woman led us to the room and served us tea. So fancy!
The room had two separate rooms (one with western beds and futons in the main room) as shown on the website, but it was even bigger than we had expected.
There was even a window with a small rock garden outside.
So much space!!! Way bigger than our apartments!
The entryway had a shoe cabinet. There was some cute rabbit origami on top. :)
Many hotels in Japan have the toilet and bath in the same room, but these were separate just like in a house or apartment.
It was cool that in the fridge even the soft drinks were in glass bottles. I didn't drink any, but I did have ginger ale in a bottle at dinner.
That phone is living in luxury, haha.
We had some time before dinner so I watched some TV. This kids show was so cute!
I don't understand the name of this show. I have no idea what they're trying to say. Let's go! Cookr'n. Cookr'n? But it was a cute kids cooking show.
We ate dinner at one of the restaurants in the hotel. Dinner was included with the room. We got a really really good deal on Japanican. The room was 10,000 yen less than usual, plus it included both dinner and breakfast. On their website the rooms just include breakfast and you have to pay for dinner separately. Such a good deal!
We sat at the table in the back of that picture. It was dark though so we didn't have that view, but we did see it the next morning at breakfast.
We both forgot to bring a camera or phone to dinner so unfortunately we don't have any pictures of that meal (these pics are from the website), but it was very Japanese. I ate some things that I don't like too much (like sashimi) but most of it was pretty good, though I had no idea what a few things were. They kept bringing more and more food! I was so stuffed at the end! I ate at least a little bit of everything except for a whole raw shrimp and some weird condiment that Jonathan said was gross. Jonathan ate the shrimp though. Ew. I don't like shrimp to begin with so when it still has eyes and everything and is raw... never.
After dinner we went to the onsen. They have two separate areas, Kinu no Toride and Kinu no Yume. They change between men and women a few times throughout the day. That evening I went to Kinu no Toride.
The jacuzzi baths were nice and bubbly. :)
The right side of that onsen was deep.
The outside onsen with the waterfall was my favorite one. So relaxing! It was also snowing a little bit. Just a few flurries, but it was nice.
That's the room where you dry your hair and stuff after the onsen. I'm not sure if that was the room in Toride or Yume. I got all of the onsen pictures from the website.
The next morning there was snow! So pretty!
Before breakfast we went to the onsen. In the morning Kinu no Yume was the women's onsen.
There was still a bit of snow out there, but it was already starting to melt.
At breakfast I was taking pictures of the food so the waitress offered to take a picture of us. We were wearing yukatas because that's what you usually do at ryokans.
There were a few unidentifiable things at breakfast, but I liked most of it.
The tofu, mushrooms, and bacon that we got to cook ourselves was my favorite part. It was cooked with a chunk of butter so of course it was delicious. I think we were supposed to eat it with the raw egg, but neither one of us did that.
I wasn't able to eat a whole lot at breakfast because I just don't have as big of an appetite for breakfast compared to dinner.
Before checking out we explored the hotel a bit and took some pictures.
We both really enjoyed our experience at Kinugawa Grand Hotel Yume no Toki. We each paid about 15,000 yen which wasn't bad at all considering that it included the huge room, onsens, and two big, fancy meals. If you want to stay at a ryokan in Japan I recommend looking on Japanican because you can find some good deals. If we had just booked through the hotel's website it would have been 20,000 a piece and not included dinner, which would have been too pricey.