Hinanoyado Chitose — Hotel in Tokamachi

This was an absolute fluke find. We left longing for more nights here.||||After many hours of scouring tripadvisor and japanican.com, we settled on Chitose. All the reviews on Chitose was in Japanese, and based on the approximate translation from google, we settled on this, although really not knowing what we were getting ourselves into.||||We arrived after driving through the mountains from Echigo Yuzawa to this little hamlet in a valley. Our car's GPS took us directly to the front door. Shoes come off once you step into the lobby. These are kept by the staff in a shoe locker. We walked around the hotel barefoot. The hotel is completely lined with tatami mats, except around the onsen areas, of course. ||||Check-in was efficiently done by the hotel owner's wife, Akemi. She spoke good English and was a great help in finding out which of the Echigo-Tsumari Art Field sites were still open, many of which were closed due to the winter snow season. She also helped us to call one of the museums to find out if we'd left our purchases behind.||||The hotel is a semi-modern ryokan with about 30 rooms, male/female baths, a roof-top onsen, and 2 private family baths. They also have a restaurant, private dining rooms, and larger function rooms. Generally, we hardly saw other guests, even though a tour group arrived at the same time as us. The private dining rooms, and the quiet, relaxing atmosphere once you enter ensure that your stress levels drop a couple of notches immediately.||||Our room was tatami-style and furnished stylishly. There was a coin-operated massage chair and this was the only item that looked worn. The dining set in the middle of the room is moved aside in the evening and beds made up for you on the floor. Sleeping on the tatami floor takes some getting used to. There are air-con vents at shin level, just under the wardrobe. These help to warm the floor and kept us warm as we slumbered. The room was well-ventilated and not stuffy in the morning.||||The toilet is separate from the shower/sink area. Showers are the typical Japanese fibreglass type. I thought the shower had weak water flow, but you could instead splash water over yourself using the small wooden bucket ala the traditional Japanese way.||||We were shown to the room by one of the staff and she made us each a cup of Japanese tea with the tea-making utensils in the room. Our luggage was also brought up by the staff. The snacks were replenished daily, and if you really like them, can be bought in the hotel gift shop.||||We chose to use the family onsen. This can be rented at JPY1050 per 45min session. There are two rooms and both come with a sink and changing area, and a shower and onsen area. The cedarwood bathing room was cosy and very relaxing.||||Dinner was a Kaiseki course-by-course-meal. Lots of small dishes made with local seasonal produce. All were very delicious and of a high quality. The sashimi was quite different as we had not had the fish before while the tender and juicy wagyu steak was done just right. Breakfast was also served in the same private room. Similar to dinner, there was a plentiful variety of little dishes including porridge, pickled vegetables, onsen egg, homemade yoghurt and more. Meals were always very filling.||||We managed to get free WiFi, but we're not sure if it was part of the hotel's WiFi network. There's free parking at the front of the hotel or the hotel staff will park your car elsewhere if it is a full house.||||Chitose sets the benchmark in terms of our semi-modern ryokan experience. We enjoyed the serene atmosphere, and traditional touches nicely blended with modern conveniences. The private onsen was extra-special for us as a family, and we were spoilt by the meals. We would highly recommend this hotel. It is also fairly central to the Art Field, and made traveling to the sites...

This was an absolute fluke find. We left longing for more nights here.||||After many hours of scouring tripadvisor and japanican.com, we settled on Chitose. All the reviews on Chitose was in Japanese, and based on the approximate translation from google, we settled on this, although really not knowing what we were getting ourselves into.||||We arrived after driving through the mountains from Echigo Yuzawa to this little hamlet in a valley. Our car's GPS took us directly to the front door. Shoes come off once you step into the lobby. These are kept by the staff in a shoe locker. We walked around the hotel barefoot. The hotel is completely lined with tatami mats, except around the onsen areas, of course. ||||Check-in was efficiently done by the hotel owner's wife, Akemi. She spoke good English and was a great help in finding out which of the Echigo-Tsumari Art Field sites were still open, many of which were closed due to the winter snow season. She also helped us to call one of the museums to find out if we'd left our purchases behind.||||The hotel is a semi-modern ryokan with about 30 rooms, male/female baths, a roof-top onsen, and 2 private family baths. They also have a restaurant, private dining rooms, and larger function rooms. Generally, we hardly saw other guests, even though a tour group arrived at the same time as us. The private dining rooms, and the quiet, relaxing atmosphere once you enter ensure that your stress levels drop a couple of notches immediately.||||Our room was tatami-style and furnished stylishly. There was a coin-operated massage chair and this was the only item that looked worn. The dining set in the middle of the room is moved aside in the evening and beds made up for you on the floor. Sleeping on the tatami floor takes some getting used to. There are air-con vents at shin level, just under the wardrobe. These help to warm the floor and kept us warm as we slumbered. The room was well-ventilated and not stuffy in the morning.||||The toilet is separate from the shower/sink area. Showers are the typical Japanese fibreglass type. I thought the shower had weak water flow, but you could instead splash water over yourself using the small wooden bucket ala the traditional Japanese way.||||We were shown to the room by one of the staff and she made us each a cup of Japanese tea with the tea-making utensils in the room. Our luggage was also brought up by the staff. The snacks were replenished daily, and if you really like them, can be bought in the hotel gift shop.||||We chose to use the family onsen. This can be rented at JPY1050 per 45min session. There are two rooms and both come with a sink and changing area, and a shower and onsen area. The cedarwood bathing room was cosy and very relaxing.||||Dinner was a Kaiseki course-by-course-meal. Lots of small dishes made with local seasonal produce. All were very delicious and of a high quality. The sashimi was quite different as we had not had the fish before while the tender and juicy wagyu steak was done just right. Breakfast was also served in the same private room. Similar to dinner, there was a plentiful variety of little dishes including porridge, pickled vegetables, onsen egg, homemade yoghurt and more. Meals were always very filling.||||We managed to get free WiFi, but we're not sure if it was part of the hotel's WiFi network. There's free parking at the front of the hotel or the hotel staff will park your car elsewhere if it is a full house.||||Chitose sets the benchmark in terms of our semi-modern ryokan experience. We enjoyed the serene atmosphere, and traditional touches nicely blended with modern conveniences. The private onsen was extra-special for us as a family, and we were spoilt by the meals. We would highly recommend this hotel. It is also fairly central to the Art Field, and made traveling to the sites...

It is difficult to capture in words how fantastic our experience staying at Hinanayodo Chitose was.

The village where it's located is a single street that winds up through the foothills and is surrounded by natural beauty.

Not much going on but a couple of little restaurants, houses and a couple of mixed business/tourist supply shops. A delight to just stroll through the village up the hill where a little waterfall flows down to a steaming outflow of onsen water creating a cloud of steam that floats around the hillside.

The ryokan itself is beautiful. A mixture of traditional design and modern conveniences. From the moment we booked, communication was polite and efficient.

We were picked up from Matsudai station by one of the staff and taken to the ryokan. We checked in and were taken for a quick tour of the premises and then to our room.

The room was immaculately clean, beautifully appointed with tatami floors, comfortable beds, a couple of extra futons and as we had treated ourselves, our own private onsen bath.

Sitting in the steaming hot onsen bath with the snow starting outside was a memory that my whole family will cherish. In fact we spent quite some time each day doing nothing beyond sitting in the bath staring at the view and having the most relaxing family down time that I can remember.

We opted for the Kaiseki dinner and were absolutely blown away by the quality and variety of dishes. The degustation menu was only in Japanese so we had no idea of half the items we ate, but just about every bite was amazing.

Although they are reasonably adventurous eaters, not every dish was entirely to our children's taste, many were, but the staff provided less exotic additional items to help out.

A sample selection of four local Sake is an option that I recommend.

Although the dishes are small, we were absolutely full by the end of the meal each night.

I recommend that if you do have lunch at one of the local restaurants down the village, which is an excellent option (see my other review), eat small dishes only so you can maximise the enjoyment of dinner. We struggled on the 2nd night as we had already had an fantastic lunch.

Little touches like the personalised dinner menu with our name on it, freshly brewed Matcha and red bean mochi treat wrapped in bamboo leaves in our room at arrival made us feel like royalty.

The owner of the ryokan although I am sure a busy lady took the time to sit down in the foyer whilst we had a coffee and taught my girls how to make a number of origami cranes, frogs, etc. She was incredibly friendly and kind as were all the staff we encountered.

An absolute highlight of our Japan vacation topped off by the fact that it started snowing on our last night to provide the girls with their first...