Koemon — Hotel in Shirakawa

This Ryokan provides wonderful accommodation and food in a world heritage listed village. Our room was adjacent to the pond fed by the irrigation channel and the sound of water made the room perfect. While toilets and bath were shared they were spotless and more than adequate. We arrived early and were welcomed and let into our room straight away to enjoy tea and a cake. Our hostess was excited that we were able to witness the re-thatching of the grass roof on an adjacent building and that event made our stay special. Witnessing 30-40 people clambering on the roof and using largely traditional techniques to complete the ten layers of thatching required was fantastic. They finished the work day with Bento boxes and crates of beer and clearly there is a wonderful community spirit in this village. Other reviewers have commented on the quietness of the hostess. I wonder what they expect of someone without a common language who is completing the difficult tasks required to feed and accommodate them to a high standard. This was our first experience of dinner and breakfast in a Ryokan on a three week tour of Japan and it set a high standard indeed. We were to go on and stay in a number of Ryoken during our trip and the best were those like Koemon, run by a family and demonstrating the best parts of traditional Japanese life. Highly...

Food was excellent, accommodation was rustic, traditional and comfortable exactly what we would like to experience. ||Much can be done about the service. The elderly lady who received us when we arrived at 5.10pm didn't seem pleased to have us. The room was no doubt ready and she did the necessary showing us the bath areas and rules. When I was filling up a check-in form, she pointed repeatedly at the address field I missed out and muttered something in Japanese, without hiding her annoyance. During dinner, again, she didn't hide her annoyance ie, she frowned, when we asked for her help to snap a family picture for us. At checkout, again she showed her frown when my Husband had a little difficulty with our only piece of luggage as if we had been rough with the wooden floor. The floor was already somewhat tattered. She thanked us nonetheless, but with no sincerity. I don't recall her smiling much at us throughout our stay. I was disappointed with the hospitality. ||My teenage children...

We chose to stay here because of 4.6 scores. But it turns out the owner doesn’t seem welcoming at all. At first we thought she may be busy with other guests but there is just one more couple besides us.||||Guide book said dinner at 6.30 pm ||We come back to have dinner at 6.15 pm. ||The lady looks piss and complain in japanese for us to “hurry” and finish dinner.||||So it make us curious what is wrong with that. She complain we are late for dinner. It is 6 pm. But we were not late as it was written in the pamplet, so we ask her to go see that paper. ||||Then we order sake, she look even more unhappy that we wanna order more?! So we feel like we have to finish our dinner in 30 mins which is not a ryokan style by one bit. The only time we feel relaxed is away from them.||||This is my 6 times to japan and 3th for ryokan stay overnight. This is a very bad one. I would Not recommended anyone to come here. It feels like we are asking them for a free night stay but we are paying about...