Ryokan Sawaya Honten – A Traditional Japanese Ryokan in Kyoto – Tour + Review

Ryokan Sawaya Honten – A Traditional Japanese Ryokan in Kyoto – Tour + Review

Hey friends. So, we’re out here in Kyoto, Japan. We’ve come out because we’re going to give you a little bit of a tour of the hotel that we’re staying in. I use the term hotel lightly because it’s a Ryoken. I’d say traditional form of a uh accommodation here in Japan. Um the one we’re staying in is the Ryaken SANE. Um, we’re kind of not quite central in Kyoto, but we’re not far out. We’ve got transport links all around us. What we’ll do, we’ll take you inside. We’ll show you a little bit of a tour of the main like public areas and then we’ll take you up to the room, show you what our room’s like, and just give you our round up at the end. and it won’t be a full review because we’re not staying here long enough and we just don’t have time to really soak in everything that the hotel has to offer. So, it’s a little bit of an interesting one. Uh, this is a traditional form of accommodation here. Um, so there will be traditional aspects that we have to follow and rules and etiquette that we have to follow when we are staying here. Um, things like taking your shoes off as you enter the hotel. um rather than just taking your shoes off when you enter the room. Um the room is going to look a little bit different to a traditional hotel room as well, but we’ll explain that when we get in. Um and also just a caveat, there will be a few like time jumps in this. Uh we’re filming the intro here during the day, but potentially we’re going to be filming the actual tour during the night. U so just bear that in mind. But hopefully this will give you a good idea as to whether you would like to stay here or even at a riyaken in general. If you do enjoy the video throughout, give a thumbs up. Do appreciate it. It really does help us out a lot. It’d be great if you could hit the subscribe button, bell icon to be notified when we post all new videos. Let’s head inside. So, this is the common area, the check-in lobby. Small seating area, TV, newspapers, microwave here as well. Um, and this is also where you when you come in, you have to take your shoes off there and you put your shoes here. You can’t step on any of this floor with outside shoes on. [Applause] So, we’re still in the common area at the moment. Got this cute little garden in the middle. Throughout the hotel, you’ve got these hot water dispensers as well, and you have what’s essentially a thermos in your room that you can fill up, and then you can like perform your own tea ceremonies, have tea. They also put snacks and stuff like that in your room as well. Um, just here is the public bath. That’s the men’s public bath. Um, I’ve got a little clip from in there now. I’ll put that in. Let’s just show you the public bath here. Your little shower to wash yourself, stool, so you can uh take water from the bucket. And then you’ve got the public bath itself there. It’s quite cute. Nice and small. Um yeah, nice little room there. So, in order to use that, you do have to drobe completely. Um, and you go in the bath naked back by the lobby area is the female one. Uh, just down here is closed at the moment, but you do have the dining area. Um, and there are packages here that include dining in, so you can have your breakfast and your dinner prepared for you, and it’ll be served as a traditional um, family meal would be. Um, and just here we’ve got the toilets and washerdryer facilities that are coin operated. So, 300 yen to do the washing uh, and on one cycle and then 100 yen for 30 minutes on the dryer. There’s two lots of those. And then you got sinks to wash up out here after you use the restroom just there. So, it’s a little bit um all over the shop in terms of like the heights of the floors and stuff like that. But it’s quite cute. And then you’ll come down here. The lights are off in here. And I’m not going to turn them on. Um, but this is just a cute little seating area. And then out the back here, again, I don’t don’t know if you can open it or not. Um, but there’s a little koi pond down the back there. Um, this might be open in the summer or something like that. But it’s it’s really cute. Although you do have the sort of like plastic shield there. is maybe it’s for the humidity or the bugs. Yes, it could be for the bugs and Becky just said. Um, so that is I mean there’s not a lot really here, but you’re essentially walking into somebody’s house to some extent. That’s what it’s supposed to feel like. Um, but it does it feels homely. It does it does feel homely and the staff were very friendly. So, explaining um some of what the Ryakin is. Um like I said at the um that’s the at the front of the uh building in the entrance. When we first came in, they this isn’t a full wrap-up. We’ll take you up to the room in just a second, but when we first came in, it was a case of take your shoes off. Mhm. There’s a little stool provided for you, so you’re not like just sitting on the step. Um take your shoes off and you put those in the rack. you got an area to put your um like umbrella and things like that. It’s basically like to cleanse yourself of the outside. It’s it’s not really how it is. They’re very they’re very clean, very procedural. Yeah. Um but basically everything in the room is is on the floor or low to the floor, isn’t it? So, it’s not easy for people with that like access issues. Like there’s there’s no list. It’s all stairs. Every room I think has stairs. Yeah. Um and then obviously you’re sleeping on the floor. So, um getting down and get back up again and even the chairs are on the floor. Yeah. Yeah. So, we’ll take It’s very cool though. Yeah. And we will take you up and show you the room in just a second and that will kind of explain what we mean basically. But um yeah, it’s it’s an acquired taste I think. Um I think we did it just for the experience more than anything though, didn’t we? We did. We did. To try it. Yeah. And like I said, there are packages that you can do to have the full experience of breakfast served to you by the family essentially. And I think that’s what it is. I’m pretty sure. I mean, I don’t know how many rooms were on that map, but it was only sort of like 10 15 rooms. Yeah, it’s not not a big place at all. Um, and there are options for futons and there are also options for normal beds as well if you did if you did need that or require it. Um, so yeah, let’s take you up to the room and show you what that looks like. So coming back as I said the um girls onen women’s onen is down the bottom here and we are located on the top floor. They’re really good at moving your bags here as well. Like the bags will all the the gentleman from the front desk he just carries your bags up and down these flights of stairs. But like we said, there are a lot of stairs. Just coming down here before we head to the room, another little common area. Got another one of the um hot water dispensers, little sofa area, another little garden there, and I think you’ve got toilets here. Yeah, you have got toilets. So cute. The stairs look really quite hard though. Like I said, there’s quite a few of them. Let’s head into the room. All right, let’s give you a tour of the room, then. Come in. Got a little uh fridge just there. And we’ve got the bathroom and this little case for your cups. Yeah, that’s true. That’s true. Sanitizer as well. That is really cute. That’s just really cute. Um here’s the bathroom. So, what we found a lot of the bathrooms in Japan are essentially washrooms. Just the whole room is a washroom, a wet room. And you just go in and do your thing in there. Conditioner, body wash, and shampoo provided. And then you got a little sink area here with a shelf and a hair dryer. Yeah, that’s what’s there. Hand soap, mirror. what you’d expect in the little um wash area, restroom, and we got one of the Japanese toilets as well. Side note on that, there hasn’t been anywhere really in Japan, we haven’t seen these toilets. So, you got all these. This is confusing because you got like flush buttons on the wall and then you got all this stuff to give yourself a little um sanitize the toilet seat. Um but yeah, really really interesting. Um they’ve provided us here some slippers and you got the long mirror there as well. And then we’re into the bedroom. You’ve got the little dividing area here. Go in there. And then the other side of it is cute because it’s like flowery. But what you’re here for is this. And how amazingly cute that is. A traditional Japanese raken. So, we’ve got the two beds that are on the floor. Um, now not really good with what the actual names for everything are. Um, but this all has a proper name and a proper meaning. It has purpose. So, the floor is slightly squishy like I can bounce on it slightly. Then you’ve got the roll out futons. Um, it’s all for purpose. There’s a reason for it all. Um, we’ve got small desk there with small chairs, actually. Low down chairs. We’ve got our little terms and conditions and contract and everything that is here. It explains any charges we may have. Visitors guide in English and Japanese. and then tourist guide to the local area. Um, and then a little uh newspaper visitor guide comes out once a week it looks like. Um, one thing to note as well, we delivered our bags. We had our bags shipped from Tokyo and they were in our room when we got here. So, that is a fantastic feature. I’ll put down in the description the company that we used for that, but it was really relatively cheap to ship our bags and it just meant that we didn’t have the faf of like taking these two massive suitcases along with us. Um, lots of storage area there that could be closed off as well. Then we’ve got a little table here which is for your tea ceremony you’re eating and everything like that. And interestingly, the chairs are on the floor. So that’s tradition of Arain as well. Um, more storage. You got a safe. You’ve got your kimonos and your towels. You’ve got a dehumidifier there as well. And then we’ve got um little amenities just here. So, small TV. Obviously, we’ve got Wi-Fi, a little um like television unit there as well. But it’s really really beautiful in here. Uh over here on the on the tea mat, you’ve got uh the teacups. You got little teapot there, a kettle. Um, you’ve got like the traditional coffee cups and then the actual like tea ceremony kind of cups that you’ve got. Um, talking about uh trash and the frequency of cleaning and whatnot. And then we’ve got like guidance for guests and luggage delivery service. in English and in Japanese as well. So yeah, that’s um I mean that’s kind of the overview of the room. You can get rooms that have air quote proper beds. We specifically booked this because we wanted as true to Japan experience as we could get and we’re staying here for two nights. So, I’m very happy that we get to do this. Really privileged to be able to do this. All right. So, that is the end of our stay here at the Ryaken SANE in Kyoto, Japan. And we stayed here two nights. Um, we’re just we’re going to be checking out shortly. Um, so I wanted to give you our thoughts and feelings. It’s not a full review by any stretch of the imagination. Um, but yeah, what what did what did you think of it? Very good. I think it’s a good a nice mix between like old and modern. I like the decor, the design. I like that it’s traditional. There are some things that makes it a bit tricky in terms of what not necessarily what we would expect because we knew what we were getting into, but like just our norms, I found it a bit difficult to adapt to some things. Like there’s nowhere to sit. You can’t unless you’re getting down onto the floor and then back off the floor again. There’s nowhere just to perch for a minute whilst I’m waiting for you to faf around, which is all the time. So, um, and also the futons are a little bit thinner than I thought they might be or than I imagined. I thought they might be a bit more cushiony. Yeah. Okay. Um, but generally I slept well and obviously we didn’t use the onsense cuz I’m not about that. But um, yeah. So, so um just to emphasize with the on sends you go down in this um we are not but underneath this you should be naked basically um and you go down in this you go to the the washroom the onson room. Mhm. You then supposed to uh sit on the stool fill up how how is it? You sit you you fill up the water. You fill up the water bowl. You wash yourself with the water bowl. Yeah. And then get into the onen naked. Um and that is it’s you’re not with like it’s not male and female together. You’ve got a male onen and you’ve got a female onen. Um obviously showed you what the uh the male onsen looks like. Um the public bath. We didn’t get a chance to go in the um female one because there were there were guests in there. So, we didn’t want Becky filming anything in there. It’s just obviously not appropriate. Um but, you know, it’s it’s the same. It’s the layout is slightly different, but the concept is the same and you do have to get naked. So, we came here to experience this part of it, the room. Yeah. and the the vibe of the hotel, not necessarily that. So, we can’t really comment on that, but it’s, you know, it’s a horses for courses thing. You know, if you’re one of those people that just strips off in the changing rooms at the gym, you’re probably not far off like being comfortable doing that. Um, but it does I just don’t think I would find it enjoyable. That’s the thing. Like, I could do it and I could be comfortable, not uncomfortable, but then but then what do you do? You can’t have your phone. You don’t have your watch. You don’t have each other to talk to, but you just sit there for a few minutes and then get out again. It just seems a bit pointless. I think if you were if you were with if you were with friends. Yeah. Yeah. But then that would be weird cuz you’d be naked with your friends. Yeah, I know. But if you were with friends or you’re if you were in a same sex relationship, then you’d be kind of like, let’s go together and you’d be in a better in a in a better situation. But um yeah, for us it just doesn’t really work. Yeah. Um which is, you know, it’s unfortunate. So um there are places that have like private ones. Um and I think we’ve got one of those. Hopefully if that works out, we should be Yeah, we should be going to one with like one in the room essentially. But so if if that does all work out, then we’ll be able to show you sort of like what that looks like in comparison. Um, but this is really nice. This the we haven’t had a lot of interactions with the staff. Um, but they’ve been attentive. It’s a very small staff team. Very small hotel. Yeah, I think it’s like the dad and the son and daughter. Son and daughter. The daughter was there. Um, so so so softly spoken. She was lovely. But they they they staff the desk to 11, don’t they? 6:00 to 11:00. I’m guessing they live here. Yeah, I’d imagine so. Yeah, like next door or upstairs or something. Um, and fantastic team. Um, we had our bags delivered. That’s one thing you can do in uh Japan. You can have bags delivered between hotels, locations, whatever. Um, and when we came, we asked about whether our bags had arrived. And we thought there was a misunderstanding because when we came into the hotel um the the gentleman took our hand luggage off of us and so when we asked on the front desk and we were like ah did our bags arrive and she was like oh yeah they’re in your room um not not in as as well like the English wasn’t that good and we thought they meant just your hand luggage. Yeah, we thought we meant the hand luggage came up and our actual suitcases were here wrapped in like plastic bags to protect them that the delivery company they put in the wardrobe. We were quite late to check in, weren’t we? But they’d already made us like hot water in the thermos for tea and they’ set everything up for us. Yeah. And it was really cute. It was just a really nice experience. Bit of a shame that we couldn’t like experience like breakfast and dinner with them. I think it would be like because we’re trying to like go go go a little bit on this vacation, we haven’t had the chance to be able to do things like that. But if you’re here for like an extended period of time, we’re only in Kyoto for like 2 days or so. If you’re in Kyoto for like a week, then, you know, you can do that and just, you know, get to experience a properly. Yeah, I think yeah, I think if you had like you could go out and do a couple of activities maybe in the middle of the day, but if you had some time to do a sort of a chill morning, do the onen in the morning or the evening if that’s what you wanted to do and then have dinner and just relax a bit. It would be that’s what this is made for. You can tell it’s kind of that vibe. Yeah. Yeah. And it’s it’s really nice. It is really nice. Really nice. It’s really nice. It’s a little bit pricey, but I was expecting it to be or to feel more like rundown because it’s oldie worldy. Mhm. But it’s not. It feels really like modern and clean and crisp. Yeah, it does. It does. I think, you know, the TV doesn’t look modern. But like but like they’re into their mahogies. They’re into their darker woods, you know? This is This isn’t mahogany. This is like No. No. This is But this this isn’t mahogany. No. like it’s it’s all it’s it’s woods. It’s pasty pastel colors. Um it’s decorated to feel like cutesy with like the flowers and stuff like that. That’s like traditional Japan. Um and it feels traditional Japan. Yeah. While still being having all the good amenities, modern enough. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and yeah, I I think I would come back here for sure. You know, I I happily come back. We’re in a fairly good location. We’re just the the transport links in Kyoto aren’t the best, but we are like what 5 minute walk from a tube station. Um, yeah, maybe bus stops are just around the corner. The bus stop is right outside. And we used that this evening and that was really handy actually to get from basically the middle of the old town to here. took 15 minutes on the bus. Yeah. And it was literally like 2 minutes walk from hotel. Yeah. So, yeah, that was really good. Yeah. Um couple of convenis uh convenience stores as well, just around the corner, a few restaurants. Um so, it’s a great location actually. Um and yeah, fairly reasonably priced for what we’ve got. Nice experience, nice staff. Um, so yeah, I mean if you’re in the area, if you’re in Kyoto, I would say this is a good option to Yeah, definitely to go with. Um, I think there probably are more central options. It depends on what you’re doing when you’re here. Mhm. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. For sure. But again, like transport links are fine regardless. So yeah, hopefully um hopefully you enjoyed the tour anyway. We enjoyed the stay. Um, it’s a cute riyaken in in Kyoto, you know. It’s it’s a tra traditional Japanese riyaken. We got what we wanted. Mhm. And uh yeah, I like I said, I do wish we would have had the opportunity to do the breakfast and dinner cuz it’d be interesting to see what they cook for you. Um but that just doesn’t fit into our itinerary. If you can do the packages, great. Do that. um and and see what it is. Uh if you don’t want the futons, there are bed options. Um I think it’s like half and half in the hotel. So yeah, you can you can see, but they’re very accommodating. Anyway, um and yeah, just really nice staff actually. Um so yeah, hopefully you enjoyed the tour. If you did enjoy the video as a whole, give us a thumbs up. Do appreciate it. It really does help us out a lot. It’d be great if you could hit the subscribe button, bell icon to be notified when we post all new videos. We’ll see you on the other side. Thanks. [Music]

In today’s video we’re taking you along to the Ryokan Sawaya Honten, a traditional Ryokan in Kyoto Japan.

We’re staying for a couple of nights at the Ryokan Sawaya Honten, we’ll show you a full tour of the Ryokan itself and explain the process of staying at a Ryokan, what it has to offer and why you should think about staying at one.

We’ll give you our thoughts and feelings on the experience as a whole and this particular one including the experience of sleeping on a futon!

This particular Ryokan does still offer traditional western beds too.

The baggage delivery service we used was provided by Yamato Transport – https://www.kuronekoyamato.co.jp/ytc/en/send/services/same-day-delivery/

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