Shima Onsen Kashiwaya Ryokan

酒店門口就是巴士“清流入口”站，連住了兩天，餐食不同，我感覺第二天的dinner更合胃口。早餐還可以選擇buffet lunch。

We spent two nights in the Hana room, with the private onsen on our balcony. The onsen was incredible! Hot! (we had to cool it down periodically with the cold showerhead, or have a cold shower and jump back in, which felt wonderful!) Walked up to the lake - a bit of a hike at 1 hour 20 minutes uphill each way! It’s pretty, but personally the incredible blue of the river is way more beautiful! If you walk into town you will pass deeper sections of the river which, especially in the afternoon, go an incredible shade of blue that my eyes could not believe! The beds in the room are on the firmer side, though still comfortable. We had to connect the tv to the internet using Google translate, it would have been nice if it was already connected for us. The food - lots of attention to detail, beautifully presented, and so many tiny bowls for each meal! It was a little on the bland side for us, but I understand that’s the style, and it made for a bit of a detox. We were certainly full at the end of each meal! Unfortunately the town is pretty much closed on Tuesdays so there was nowhere we could go for lunch. Lucky we had snacks in our bags that got us through. The private onsen you can use all looked lovely. We had our own one so we didn’t use them, but would have enjoyed them if we had one of the other rooms. The staff are all lovely, very friendly and attentive. We were glad to have gone there. Note: if you are catching the shuttle bus back to Tokyo station, make sure you go to the bus stop a bit further on from the local bus! Despite asking staff they told us to just wait ‘at the bus stop here’ and didn’t even mention there were two bus stops! If it wasn’t for another traveler who goes to Shima Onsen frequently we would have missed our one bus for the day! Aldo note that it’s a four hour ride including rest stops, not three hours.

This was the highlight of my first ever Japan trip. We booked the round trip bus ticket to and from Tokyo station and the vegan tasting dinner and everything went as smoothy as possible. I cannot recommend this experience enough, everything was clean and cozy, the staff were some of the nicest people we met on our trip, and the onsens were tranquil and relaxing. I will make it a person goal to come back here on a future trip and am already sending my friends who live in Tokyo to come check it out.