Motoyu Ishiya — Hotel in Kanazawa

A beautiful traditional Japanese Inn nestled into the mountains. This was a very serene place to stay after having spent the first several days of our trip in Tokyo. The building itself was immaculate and beautiful. You could truly feel the age and experience of the inn, without any concern about it feeling worn down or deteriorated. The inn itself was so comfortable that instead of going into Kanazawa during the day, my fiancée and i decided to instead just sit in relax, reading in the meditation/reading room. The room we got was a wonderfully large tatami room that overlooked the main entrance to the Inn. Not once did we have any issues with noise etc.

The food itself was an amazing traditional experience, with so many courses of food. Each plate was fairly small, but the sheer amount of different items being brought out meant that more often than not I couldnt even finish the full meal, and I am a massive guy who normally eats way too much to be healthy! The sheer variety as well meant I got to try so many different things that I normally would never have considered ordering myself at a regular restaurant.

The hot springs themselves are very quaint. The water looks like you are bathing in coffee! As a Canadian the water was very hot, and I could only stay in the hot springs for a short while before the steam started making me light headed. Definitely more potent than any hot spring Ive experienced here in North America.

Overall though the best part of our two night stay came down to the amazing staff running the inn. I speak next to no Japanese and yet that didnt stop the staff from going above and beyond to make sure our every need was met. Whether that be the staff coming out to greet us and personally take our bags to and from our room, to them making sure we were comfortable and happy relaxing in the reading rooms during the morning room cleaning (even coming to find us to let us know when our room was done!). They even went so far as to personally deliver dessert to my fiancee in our room after a mix up at dinner, not to mention their amazing help they gave my brother and his boyfriend, when the two of them accidentally left one of their bags at the inn, making sure it got delivered to them in Kobe within just two days!

When we next come to Japan, we are definitely returning, and we will be recommending this inn to all our friends in Japan, as well as everyone we know who plans to visit this...

We were visiting Kanazawa to see the old wooden town and surrounding areas and decided to stay in an onsen for a new experience. It's a little out of the main town in the countryside about a 15 minute JPY1,500 cab ride away, ||The family run business is delightful and apart from one run of tattered carpet which is to replaced soon I'm told, is a true country inn. We opted for the garden view tatami room which was very spacious with 2 sitting areas for JPY37,000p/nt including breakfast (Japanese or Western) and 15 (tiny) course kaiseki dinners which were both wonderful. The gardens are complete with stream and a myriad of aged trees and bonsai right outside our floor to ceiling window which had privacy from other rooms as well. The onsen had 4 different tubs of room temperature, warm inside, warm outside (screened) a hot inside plus a sauna with separate onsen facilities for females. They are fed by an artesian bore that passes through mineral deposits giving the water a copper colour but no odour - delightful. There are scattered singles or small group seating contemplation areas throughout the hotels hallways that overlook the garden also.||We were collected for tours over two days from the hotel so distance from town wasn't a problem. The private dining room kaiseki dinners are of a high standard so there's no need to go to town to eat either and both nights were entirely different dishes.||For a complete Japanese ryokan onsen experience - it's good...

We were visiting Kanazawa to see the old wooden town and surrounding areas and decided to stay in an onsen for a new experience. It's a little out of the main town in the countryside about a 15 minute JPY1,500 cab ride away, ||The family run business is delightful and apart from one run of tattered carpet which is to replaced soon I'm told, is a true country inn. We opted for the garden view tatami room which was very spacious with 2 sitting areas for JPY37,000p/nt including breakfast (Japanese or Western) and 15 (tiny) course kaiseki dinners which were both wonderful. The gardens are complete with stream and a myriad of aged trees and bonsai right outside our floor to ceiling window which had privacy from other rooms as well. The onsen had 4 different tubs of room temperature, warm inside, warm outside (screened) a hot inside plus a sauna with separate onsen facilities for females. They are fed by an artesian bore that passes through mineral deposits giving the water a copper colour but no odour - delightful. There are scattered singles or small group seating contemplation areas throughout the hotels hallways that overlook the garden also.||We were collected for tours over two days from the hotel so distance from town wasn't a problem. The private dining room kaiseki dinners are of a high standard so there's no need to go to town to eat either and both nights were entirely different dishes.||For a complete Japanese ryokan onsen experience - it's good...