Ryokan – A New Hope

After my first attempt to stay at a ryokan I had serious doubts if this was the right thing for me at all. On the other hand, it might just have been a not so lucky choice. Especially the noise level should be lower in almost every other place. And maybe there are differences between futons as well. Actually I met some guy in a pub in Nagoya, who used to live in Japan for 7 years, who said exactly this.

So I wanted to do two things. First, find another place to travel to. Second try to find an affordable ryokan to stay there. After clicking around on the quite useful German website about traveling in Japan and on booking.com, I found something promising in Kanazawa. It is a bit in the middle of nowhere, about 40 Minutes walk from the station. Yes, I did walk, although you can ceertainly ride the bus instead.

It was not too easy to find the property, as the location in Google Maps is a bit off. I liked it already before I opened the door. When I just got off my shoes the landlady came to welcome me. After the red tape was done, she gave me a quick virtual tour on a map, where to find the onsen, what shops and restaurants are in the neighborhood and then my room.

It was immedeately obvious that this would be much better than the last time. The room was lovely and event the futon locked like it was very well suited to sleep on it. I would estimate this one was about three times as thick as the one in the other place.

After the first night I can confirm that the ryokan was a good choice!

In case you are wondering about the earthquake on new years day, yes Kanazawa was also affected. It is at the base of the Noto peninsula. The epicenter was about 150 km north from here. There are some facilities still closed for repair. Unfortunately the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art is one of them.

Occasionally you find warning signs to leave a building imediately if there are any signs of an earthquake.