Kyoto [Part VI - The Ryokan 若葉家旅館]

Wakabaya Ryokan [若葉家旅館] just opposite the Hospital in the North East side of Kyoto... Despite us trying to book our ryokan early (in anticipation of Japanese holiday planning efficiency) and attempting to coincide our visit with Sakura/Hanami 桜・花見 A lot of the ryokan's that Greg managed to find were either booked the nights that we wanted to stay, or very expensive. However, after trawling through the Rakuten Travel website (here) I managed to find the Wakabaya ryokan which is only available when you do your search in Japanese. Greg convinced Fumi to phone up on our behalf and make the booking, but on hearing the name for the reservation, the owner became very apprehensive, and it was only due to the very polite and convincing argument of Fumi-san, that we managed to make the reservation. I guess the reason that the Japanese search is different from the English search on Rakuten travel, is because some of the hotels/ryokans specify their clientèle...Because the Ooyasan 大家さん of the Wakabaya did not speak english she doesn't really take foreigners...

The ryokan is attached to a restaurant (where we had our breakfast)...and I think it was called Kabuki 歌舞伎 or something like that. The ryokan itself definitely looked as though it had seen better days...probably sometime in the 1960's. There was a room for toilets, which had two little urinals stuck to the wall, and three 'Japanese-style' loos (ie. squat loos) and one 'western-style loo' - I didn't venture into the Japanese ones, but the Western one had the smallest little light bulb in it, which was plugged into the mains and the only source of light, which was quite amusing. There was also a very sinister looking 'massage' chair...which looked more like a torture instrument...But it all paled insignificance because the hospitality of the owner, a lovely little old lady, who I mainly saw with a stitch apron and a headscarf tied around her head to keep her hair back.

On our first night, we had arrived rather late, and still had not had dinner...I did try to ask the lady if there were any places to buy food nearby, and she pointed us to the nearest combini...but in the end we managed to get to a Hokka-hokka Tei ほっかほっか亭(a bento 弁当 chain store - not great food but I wasn't really in the mood for trekking for ages to find anything more exciting...) and then dragged it back to the ryokan...I just popped down stairs to get some hot water, and the little old lady handed me a thermos, and then told me to wait. I waited. She then appeared with a plate of tempura, which she insisted that I take. It was very generous of her, and definitely better tasting than the stuff we bought from hokka hokka tei.

The next night, instead of the usual tea that is left in the ryokan room (on the little tea table) she had placed plain hot water... which was very thoughtful of her. She also warned us that it would be raining on Sunday...so we should take care, which was nice of her. Anyway, she was very cool, and I'm not sure our Japanese was good enough to thank her enough for her hospitality.

photo taken from Rakuten Travel Website: http://travel.rakuten.co.jp/HOTEL/8817/8817.html