Hoshi Ryokan - the beauty of immortal traditions in an ancient Japanese hotel. Ryokan. Japanese Traditional Inn Frozen Time of Traditions

No other hotel in the world can boast of such a duration of service to people: Hoshi Ryokan was founded in 717. At this time to Buddhist monk is a mountain spirit who says that near the village of Avazu there is a hidden underground source of hot water that can heal all kinds of diseases.

Taicho Daishi not an egoist - after waiting for spring, the monk goes to the village to dig in the indicated place healing spring. And indeed, a miracle happens: local residents, unaware of the natural treasure that was under their noses, heal their ailments.

Then the monk gives instructions to his best student Gario Hoshi to establish a hospital in this place, which time will turn into a good hotel. Only one single family will possess this treasury of a healthy spirit throughout all the past centuries. Today the 46th generation is running things! In all 13 centuries there is not a single year when the inn was not open.

As the catchphrase says, everything is afraid of time, and time is afraid Egyptian pyramids. But perhaps there will not be too much humor in addition to this catchphrase: time is afraid of the sacred hotel Hoshi Ryokan. It’s no joke: when a holy person blesses a building.

Frozen time of tradition

Today's hotel, bowing to traditions, does not want to keep up with the times. The Japanese can be understood: exactly cultural tradition will allow the self-identification of the people to be preserved for many centuries. And without it, slide into counterculture, which so clearly demonstrates to us western civilization. The rooms, for example, have woven straw rugs on the floor.

Can you imagine woven straw on the floors of New York's reinforced concrete hotels? Or – sliding bamboo doors? How about a Japanese mattress or futon for bed? It is unlikely that imagination will be enough. They even wash themselves in this Japanese place the old fashioned way, as they have done for many centuries, in a bathhouse, not in a bathtub. Don't look for her in your room.

But here almost everything is the same as many centuries ago. Except, of course, for the Internet and flat screen TV. In addition to a picturesque garden with exotic plants surrounding the hotel, there is even a museum and a theater where guests can sing karaoke if the blissful mood suddenly strikes.

But it is not the sauna or the SPA center that are the highlights of this exotic space, but those very famous baths under open air where healing hot waters circulate.

The resident receives a particularly strong, unforgettable impression in winter, when, being in warm water, he turns his face to the falling snowflakes. Comments, as they say, are unnecessary. Such an extravaganza will be remembered for the rest of your life...

The cost of a stay is high: about $580, but the location is so attractive that the hotel is never empty. Therefore, rooms need to be booked, especially since there are not too many of them - about a hundred.

Traditional rich Japanese cuisine does not bother anyone. For respect for traditions appears here automatically, no matter what, and the place is sacred: the hotel is located at the foot of the sacred Mount Haku, which the holy monk climbed 13 centuries ago.

Perhaps some guests will also be blessed by the spirit of this mountain if they approach the sacred heights.

If an amateur Unusual Hotels one day he wants to be among the delights of this blessed place, he will have to get to the Japanese village of Tsuwano. But remember: the Japanese have strange villages - Tsuwano, for example, is located on 309 square kilometers. Not a bad site for 7,700 residents.

Let me remind you that Moscow occupies approximately 1000 square meters. kilometers. Hoshi Ryokan separated from civilization by a thin partition: a few minutes walk to the railway station and 60 kilometers from the nearest airport, Hiroshima.

Ryokan. Japanese traditional hotel.

To experience the atmosphere of feudal Japan, you need to spend the night in a "ryokan", a traditional Japanese inn. Exists big variety Such hotels range from small, wooden ones to huge modern ones, many of which have banquet halls and restaurants. A ryokan room is usually one large room with a traditional tatami floor made of rice straw. There is a low table in the center. Instead of doors there are sliding "shoji". The room must have a tokonoma - a wooden niche on which ikebana is located and above which hangs a painting or an inscription - kakemono. You can admire beautiful view from the windows of your room: a Japanese garden or the endless sea. All staff are dressed in kimonos. Guests sleep on futons, which are laid out by maids in the evenings.

Japan has a surprisingly long history of hotels that, by the very idea of a hotel, provide rooms with Western-style beds and restaurants with European cuisine. The Kanaya Hotel and the Fujiya Hotel, which began operating in 1875 and 1878. accordingly, even older than the famous "Ritz" in Paris! Exterior and interior styles are often borrowed from Buddhist and Shinto shrines. Typical examples are the Kanaya and Fujiya hotels mentioned above, which are examples borrowed from Toshogu Shrine in . Hotel owners have done everything to ensure that their guests enjoy the Japanese atmosphere combined with the comfort of a modern hotel. Today, these buildings, with a look more exotic than any existing church or temple, seem to embody not the real Japan, but a fantastic land in the illusions of foreigners.

Most ryokans have their own onsens. Staying in a hotel built on hot springs is quite expensive. But this does not deter visitors. Rooms in such hotels for weekends must be booked a couple of weeks in advance. Trips to the onsen with families, groups or alone are almost an obligatory ritual for many Japanese. And what draws them here is, first of all, the opportunity to communicate with nature, to feel it not only visually, but, as they say, with all their skin. At hotels, entire cascades of “rotenburo” are often built - open-air baths, where the views of bathers are not limited by walls and fences, but, on the contrary, they have magnificent views of mountains, valleys, and copses.

Lords traveling to and from Edo stayed at inns called honjin. Some of the big cities along big roads had as many as five or six honjin. During the busy season it often happened that several daimyo (feudal lords) flocked to the city, creating considerable unrest, until the plan for renting out the premises was settled.

While moving feudal lords stayed in honjin, commoners spent their nights in inns called hatago. The simplest hatago were called ki-tin-yado, or "hotels with payment for firewood." Here, travelers cooked their own food from the products they brought with them, paying the owner only for the firewood they used as fuel.

Honjin And hatago The Edo period is considered the forerunner of modern ryokans. Even some of the highest class Japanese hotels today have inherited the tradition honjin where we stayed many years ago daimyo. Other ryokans even more luxurious than hatago, who at one time were under the patronage of wealthy merchants. Famous hotels in the type TAVARAYA, SUMIYA and HIIRAGIA, considered high-class ryokan, descended from hatago. Prestigious, high-class hotels in Kyoto catered to a regular clientele, mainly wealthy merchants from nearby and Omi.

Your room price includes two meals - the same evening feast, including delights local cuisine, and a simple breakfast. Traditional Japanese food is made from fish and seafood. By the way, as the Japanese themselves say, they live longer than other peoples precisely because of the enormous variety and quantity of fish products. Lunch in a good ryokan will satisfy any demanding gourmet and give an idea of the many-sided and diverse Japanese cuisine. The Japanese eat with chopsticks - hassi, which are considered sacred symbols, they are made from cherry, maple, pine - these bring good luck, from ebony - longevity, eating with chestnut sticks, if used for a long time, leads to wealth.

A Japanese hotel and a Western hotel have obvious differences. First of all, the Japanese inn, or ryokan, is built in a traditional style, while hotels in Japan everywhere are built on a reinforced concrete frame. In a ryokan you sit on mats tatami and sleep on the floor futon and instead of a robe they give you yukata. There are also other, more subtle differences. The most important of them is service or, more precisely, the attitude of staff and guests towards service. At the hotel, employees provide services only upon client's request. At a ryokan, the staff is always nearby, offering one service after another before you even think about ordering anything.

As soon as you check into a Japanese hotel, you are shown your room. The maid in charge of your room will soon appear. She brings some local snacks and green tea to the table, offers you a treat, and stays in the room for a while to chat and answer questions. This is the perfect time for guests to casually tip her. These tips are called kokoro-zuke.

Kokoro-zuke somewhat different from tipping in the West, and this is another difference between a hotel and ryokan. In a hotel, you tip as a thank you for specific service, like when a bellman brings your luggage, or after a meal. We give kokoro-zuke only once, shortly after arrival, as a way of saying " yoshiku onegai-shimas"(I hope we can count on you during our stay here). At the hotel, we ask for what we want when we think we really want it. In ryokan We take over the care of the staff and leave things to them.

In a ryokan you can relax more as you don't have to worry about the little things. In a good ryokan, the staff are intuitive - they read your mind and bring you everything you want before you ask for it. You are in their care. This is the special aspect of the ryokan. As soon as you feel hungry, your food appears - you don't have to ask for it, and there's no need to fuss over the menu. After finishing the meal, the plates disappear. This happens at both dinner and breakfast, as the ryokan serves both. One of the benefits of staying at a ryokan is that you eat in your room. Some hotels are known to offer room service, and a new ryokan may have a communal dining area. But usually the ryokan staff will bring food to your room.

And what kind of dishes! Traditional Japanese food is a delight to look at and taste. For many people, food is a deciding factor in evaluating a ryokan. A good ryokan will serve local delicacies of the season. If you are near the sea, you will have fresh sashimi(raw fish) served on a wooden plate that looks like a small boat. Travel to the mountains and your table will be full of wild vegetables, freshly picked, of course. Eating at a good ryokan will satisfy the most discerning palate and give you an idea of the wide variety of food available in Japan.

At a ryokan, you don't have to worry about what to wear. In your room you will find a type of robe that looks like an informal kimono. This is a yukata. Change into a yukata and tanjin jacket and you're dressed for dinner in your room or a formal evening in the lounge. You can even wear a yukata to bed. In a hotel you are expected to dress up for the occasion, but in a ryokan, no matter how luxurious things may be, a simple yukata will suffice. This is another important difference between a hotel and a ryokan.

In a hotel, your room is the only private area at your disposal. Open the door to the corridor and you are in the common area. In Japan, people might wear yukata in their hotel rooms, but they would never walk around the hotel in them - they would feel like they were walking in pajamas. But in a ryokan, you can go out into the lobby or even into the garden wearing only a yukata. It's like the whole ryokan is an extension of your own room. You appear in public only after you leave the ryokan premises.

In a ryokan, you can think of large baths as an extension of your own room. Sitting naked in a hot bath up to your chin is one of the delights of staying in a ryokan. Many ryokans, in addition to places like , are located near hot springs, and people who come here are happy to slip into the bath and do what one can do best in a Japanese inn - relax.

In fact, all ryokan staff are women. This applies to both maids who monitor their work. Service in ryokans is performed mainly by women dressed in kimonos. In a sense, these women act as mothers to travelers far from home. As you can see, a ryokan is designed for people who want to forget all their worries and just relax.

Given the elegance and sophistication of life in Japan, staying in a ryokan requires some rules that differ from Western hotels. First of all, guests take off their shoes at the hotel threshold and walk through the hotel halls in slippers. These slippers, in turn, are removed outside the guest room: only bare feet or stockinged feet are allowed on the tatami.

Ryokans are ubiquitous in Japan, but for the best experience, you should find a ryokan in a quiet, residential area. Most ryokans are small buildings with no more than a dozen or so rooms, and often have a small garden outside the ryokans. There are approximately 70,000 ryokans in Japan, 1,800 of which are high-quality establishments affiliated with the Japan Ryokan Association.

Anyone keen to learn more about Japanese traditions and culture would find the history of the nation's inns particularly compelling!

Based on materials from Nipponia magazine.

Inside, on the ground floor, there is a hall where tourists can relax and talk, as well as watch TV, if available:

Many ryokans lock the door at 11 pm.

You cannot enter the front of the hotel until the owner appears.

The rooms also have a traditional look, with tatami floors and balcony doors made of shoji (fine paper). The door leading into the room can also be made of shoji, but recently, for security purposes, interior doors made of more durable materials have been used.

In each room there is a small table with tea accessories, at which guests can dine, as many prefer to eat in their rooms.

The rooms do not have bathrooms, except in hotels built in last years for foreigners. There is a shared bath. Two meals a day consists of breakfast and dinner, often served in the room.

Furniture includes a small mirror on a stand, clothes hangers, a low table and, as a rule, a TV.

As soon as tourists arrive at the hotel, they are immediately shown to their room, and the maid brings some local food and green tea. The Japanese, as well as in other countries, have a custom of giving tips to servants, but with a slight difference: here they are given only once, and must be wrapped in an envelope.

The ryokan staff is predominantly women, dressed in kimonos. The attitude of ryokan employees towards visitors is somewhat different than in modern hotels, since all services are provided only upon request of the client, and in general the level of service is considered to be very high.

In a ryokan, you can wear a special kimono called a yukata, which is located in each guest's room. You can wear a kimono both in the hotel and outside:

So, for example, we went to the store. The people around did not react at all:

As for food in the ryokan, the cuisine here is also traditional, it is called “kaiseki”. Meals are usually served twice a day and are included in the room price. The food served at a ryokan varies small size, but nevertheless their number is quite large. Most of the dishes are made from a variety of seafood - fish, squid, shrimp, etc.

After dinner, returning to your room, you can find the following picture: mattresses and bed linen are already lying on the tatami. Sleeping is a bit rough, but over time you get used to it:

Many ryokans not located in tourist centers, will cost tourists quite inexpensively. For a night spent in such a hotel, you can pay about $40. But most ryokans, especially in Kyoto, are located in beautiful scenic locations, and for one night in these hotels you will have to pay much more, about $400. This ryokan costs $200 per night.

And so, you get up in the morning, open the window... And there is complete serenity and silence:

Expensive ryokans are often surrounded by famous Japanese gardens, many are located on the sea coast, and some are located in mountainous areas. Beautiful nature The area around the hotel plays a very important role when choosing a ryokan, and greatly influences the price.

A ryokan is not just a type of hotel, it is the history and traditions of Japan, reflected in the culture of life of the establishment. Classic architecture, location in picturesque place and the almost complete absence of modern technology make staying in a ryokan incredibly peaceful. Perhaps only here can a traveler truly escape the hectic and stress-filled life of the metropolis, spend time in peace and quiet and listen to his desires.

The history of ryokans began in 713, during the flourishing of Zen teachings. In that era, pilgrimages to holy places were very popular. During the journey, aristocrats did not want to spend the night on the street, and ordinary people often died along the road from cold and hunger. The monks were very concerned about this state of affairs, so they decided to build special places for rest and overnight stay, which were the predecessors of the modern ryokan.

Most ryokan, due to frequent occurrences volcanic activity in Japan, located on hot springs - onsen, which have long been famous for their healing and relaxing properties.

Typically, the price of staying at a ryokan includes breakfast, and less often lunch and dinner. The food is a traditional multi-course menu - kaiseki.

The most famous ryokans are located in: Tawariya, Sumiya and Hiiragiya.
One of the oldest ryokans in Japan is Hoshi Ryokan. It was built in 717 and continues to successfully welcome guests to this day.
During your stay at the ryokan, guests are provided with slippers and a yukata - a traditional light kimono.
In ryokans, it is customary to sleep on the floor on special mattresses - futons. But for the convenience of foreign guests, some modern ryokans are equipped with beds.

Special attention:

Most ryokans close at night and only open in the morning. It is impossible to leave the ryokan or get inside at night. We recommend checking the ryokan's schedule in advance so you don't have to spend the night on the street.
If you decide to relax at a ryokan that has hot springs, remember that onsen and public baths are not allowed for people with tattoos. Exceptions are extremely rare.
IN traditional ryokan You don't pay for a room, but for a seat on a futon.

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