Nukabira Onsen Nakamuraya — Local services in Kamishihoro

Don’t let the non-descript building fool you. Most Hokkaido small towns in the summer show their age. This hotel is well known as one of the best in the area and the food served is excellent.||Upon walking into the lobby, faint smoke smells in a dark lobby filled with antiques with groups of couches spread out around the area. The proprietress summoned another lady who could speak to us in Mandarin and we got by with our passable language skills.||After passport formalities were observed, we were helped with our luggage to our room. The hotel has plenty of antiques and older stuff. It’s like stepping into a time warp.||Our room was on the other end of the building, above the onsen. Just after the room door, there’s a large Japanese alcove to put on/take off shoes. Beyond a sliding door, is a large tatami style sitting room and further to the right was the bedroom with two single beds on a platform. ||The toilet is on the right of the beds, housed at the end of a long corridor. The corridor has a long table and the sink sits in the middle of it. One end has tea/coffee making facilities, while the other end can be used as a make up counter, complete with a high stool. A toilet with motion detector lights is at the end of the corridor. It has all the usual Japanese toilet functions.||There are no shower facilities. This homely 17 Room Onsen-Inn has an onsen downstairs and you are expected to use that to bathe. The staff swap the blue and red Noren (cloth drapes, half-covering the doors) to the bath house so that guests of both sexes can enjoy both facilities. The larger bath house has glass windows that are magical in the evenings. ||Our beds were just right. The sheets seemed to have a pretty high thread count. My wife and I shared a side table with a lamp and old style phone. No electrical points to charge mobile devices to be found around the bed platform. The nearest is either beside the TV or the living room.||There’s a flat screen TV on the partition wall in front of the beds. I expect that it only showed local Japanese TV. Bring your own entertainment. ||There’s a safe in the living room with a key; it’s not electronic. WiFi can be received in the room.||The living room has a traditional clothes rack for hanging ones jackets and the Yukuta Jacket. There’s another rack in the bedroom for towels and clothes. Wall pegs are mounted on the partition wall between the bed and toilet corridor.||Our room had a shelf with a selection of 6-7 different types of pillows, to customize to your sleeping style. ||The staff set up a tatami style bed for my son in the living room.||In the key set, you will find an extra key for access to a room with all sorts of “spares”. Clothes drying racks, sketch pads with pencils, more towels, board games, tripods for cameras, and even chargers for devices.||If you’re in need of a gym, you’ve come to the wrong place. There is a park nearby if you need to train. However, summer time means more flies or mozzies. Insect repellent is advisable.||Food is home made and delicious. Dinner is laid out in front of you with a couple of surprise dishes brought to the table later; We had local vegetable tempura and seared deer meat. ||Breakfast is buffet style and available from 7.30-9.00am. Expect Japanese style with hot and cold dishes, rice, soup. Some fruits on the side, and small cans of Sapporo beer if it pleases you. Help yourself also to Machine coffee.||All together a great stay at this family run onsen. It’s not modern but it’s homely atmosphere and cheerful, friendly staff are winners in our book. Don’t let the lack of in room shower put you off. With 17 rooms only, the onsen does not...

Don’t let the non-descript building fool you. Most Hokkaido small towns in the summer show their age. This hotel is well known as one of the best in the area and the food served is excellent.||Upon walking into the lobby, faint smoke smells in a dark lobby filled with antiques with groups of couches spread out around the area. The proprietress summoned another lady who could speak to us in Mandarin and we got by with our passable language skills.||After passport formalities were observed, we were helped with our luggage to our room. The hotel has plenty of antiques and older stuff. It’s like stepping into a time warp.||Our room was on the other end of the building, above the onsen. Just after the room door, there’s a large Japanese alcove to put on/take off shoes. Beyond a sliding door, is a large tatami style sitting room and further to the right was the bedroom with two single beds on a platform. ||The toilet is on the right of the beds, housed at the end of a long corridor. The corridor has a long table and the sink sits in the middle of it. One end has tea/coffee making facilities, while the other end can be used as a make up counter, complete with a high stool. A toilet with motion detector lights is at the end of the corridor. It has all the usual Japanese toilet functions.||There are no shower facilities. This homely 17 Room Onsen-Inn has an onsen downstairs and you are expected to use that to bathe. The staff swap the blue and red Noren (cloth drapes, half-covering the doors) to the bath house so that guests of both sexes can enjoy both facilities. The larger bath house has glass windows that are magical in the evenings. ||Our beds were just right. The sheets seemed to have a pretty high thread count. My wife and I shared a side table with a lamp and old style phone. No electrical points to charge mobile devices to be found around the bed platform. The nearest is either beside the TV or the living room.||There’s a flat screen TV on the partition wall in front of the beds. I expect that it only showed local Japanese TV. Bring your own entertainment. ||There’s a safe in the living room with a key; it’s not electronic. WiFi can be received in the room.||The living room has a traditional clothes rack for hanging ones jackets and the Yukuta Jacket. There’s another rack in the bedroom for towels and clothes. Wall pegs are mounted on the partition wall between the bed and toilet corridor.||Our room had a shelf with a selection of 6-7 different types of pillows, to customize to your sleeping style. ||The staff set up a tatami style bed for my son in the living room.||In the key set, you will find an extra key for access to a room with all sorts of “spares”. Clothes drying racks, sketch pads with pencils, more towels, board games, tripods for cameras, and even chargers for devices.||If you’re in need of a gym, you’ve come to the wrong place. There is a park nearby if you need to train. However, summer time means more flies or mozzies. Insect repellent is advisable.||Food is home made and delicious. Dinner is laid out in front of you with a couple of surprise dishes brought to the table later; We had local vegetable tempura and seared deer meat. ||Breakfast is buffet style and available from 7.30-9.00am. Expect Japanese style with hot and cold dishes, rice, soup. Some fruits on the side, and small cans of Sapporo beer if it pleases you. Help yourself also to Machine coffee.||All together a great stay at this family run onsen. It’s not modern but it’s homely atmosphere and cheerful, friendly staff are winners in our book. Don’t let the lack of in room shower put you off. With 17 rooms only, the onsen does not...

My partner and I stayed here in October for 2 nights and had a great time. I researched all hotels in Nukabira Onsen area because it is now committed to true "Gensen Kakenagashi (undiluted hot spring)" policy as a whole and they also offer free passes to try all the other hot springs or restaurants in the area during the stay. Seems interesting so I looked for a nice ryokan to meet our budget. Then found Nakamura-ya's very unique website and immediately got very much interested. When we arrived we didn't know if we have arrived at the right place since the exterior of the building looked quite dated and unattractive, far from their website's impression. But step inside, we felt welcomed right away. Very retro good-old-days decor was nice and the check-in was done at the comfortable chairs with warm hibachi fireplaces and a cup of buckwheat tea (or espresso). The facility is old and reminded me of dated Onsen hotels but they are updating the interior one room at a time and almost all the amenities we needed to use were renovated. Lots of wood and antique furniture made the atmosphere relaxing and stylish in a very Hokkaido-ish way. Our room wasn't the renovated one and looked dated (we knew it when we booked it since their web site has pictures and you can specify the room number you want to stay in.) but it was spacious and comfortable. They provided great tasting green tea, home-made soap, good size bathing towels and a tote to carry stuff during our stay. Nice touch. Room entry has a double door and it was very quiet. Two indoor baths are both looked old in a good way (one has been renovated with lots of wood) and maintained well. The newly renovated outdoor bath was fantastic. It's unisex bath and we were there by ourselves and no other guests. Food was all local, and very generous volume with lots of selections. They offered house-brewed sake aperitif at dinner as well. Staff were all friendly yet polite, and provided us a good amount of information to make our stay the way we liked. On the second day we tried one of other hotels' bath out of curiosity but didn't like that much and sticked to Nakamura-ya's after all. Their shop is also unique and very local, not a typical tacky one you see everywhere else. Their hallways were decorated in retro antique furniture and sawing machines, round screen TV's and such and lots of hand-made details were found throughout. It was fun to discover them. They know how to make old things beautiful again. One down side is that smoking is allowed in the hotel. Our room didn't smell at all and it was fine but we were bothered a few times in the lobby when we wanted to enjoy music, tea and coffee. Overall we had a really memorable great experience at this unique ryokan. Looking forward to go back sometime in the future hopefully and see the progress of their renovations, or stay in a...