Day 10 In Japan : Checking In At Uematsuya

Remember I mentioned in my earlier post about Day 10 being a day for relaxing?

We checked-in at Uematsuya for the night. Located in Bessho Onsen resort in Nagano Prefecture, Uematsuya is right in centre of the resort area so it is quite convenient to sightsee or visit other public baths surrounding the ryokan.

From Bessho Onsen station, we took a free shuttle ride to the ryokan and upon the arrival of the shuttle van, a staff was already waiting for guests' arrival. Pretty much the same scenario at other places too. Hotel/ryokan staff will be already standing outside when the shuttle van is due to arrive. Good service eh?

The hotel we spent our night in.

That's a persimmon tree outside the ryokan, but they were still unripe for us to even try to nick one! XD

After checking-in formalities done, we were ushered to a seat and served with hot towels (just two in the photo because Raimie had already took his);

along with frothy green tea for us and iced barley tea for Raimie and some sweets too. The green tea is traditionally prepared in single portions, whipped to a frothy green color with a bamboo whisk, by the way.

If you drink alcohol, they will also serve you with a local white and red wine too.

After being amply refreshed by the tea, we were shown to our room. It's really spacious, isn't it? We got a really big room, almost the size of a small apartment! I kid you not!

In the room, the staff explained to us about the ryokan facilities and also arranged for our preferred time for dinner that night and breakfast the next morning. We had our dinner later that night in the comfort of our room.

If you are worried about not understanding Japanese, worry no more. This ryokan provides printed explanations about the facilities and also about the area in English. There are also English speaking front office staff to assist you.

Some of the facilities here look old but they are all in good working condition. Upon seeing this telephone, Raimie asked me how to use it. My son has never seen or used this type of phone before! Actually, staying in this ryokan kinda made me feel like I was being transported back to Meiji era.

A guest book dating way back in the 1990s. There were a stack of guest books in our room and flicking through it, there were plenty of foreign guests writing, but all of them wrote in Japanese!

View from our room. It was nice to open the window and sit at the verandah, looking out and enjoying the scenery.

We didn't stay in our room for long. Next order of business was of course to enjoy a dip in their onsens. We did that and later in the evening, Zaini and I went out to sightsee. That - next. Stay tuned!