japanese past

Two trains and a taxi ride later, we arrived in the charming town of Tsumago. During the Edo Period, Tsumago was a post town people would stop in on their way from Tokyo to Kyoto. It is preserved to be almost a living museum of the time period. We stayed in a Ryokan (traditional Japanese inn) run by a very kind and hospitable couple.

Here are some pictures from our train window of the countryside.

This woman was tending her garden.

There are these rice fields all over.

Here is our cute little inn.  If you look at the top, that is where we stayed.

The garden and koi pond in front of the entrance.

We had our own little veranda which joined our two little rooms.

This is our bedroom.  We slept on futons with little rice pillows.  The tatami floors were very nice.

The have a little table where you can have tea.  When they prepare your room for sleeping, they move the table out of the way to make more room.

This is the kids' room.  The fourth futon was set up after their table was put away.

We had our tea (water) when we arrived in the room.

Our suitcases were left outside our rooms so we did not hurt the nice tatami floors.  We are quite the group walking around train stations with our suitcases!

We ate lunch at this little restaurant across from the inn.  It just had 4 small tables and two women running the restaurant.  It was delicious.  The innkeeper warned us against eating too much at lunch because he had a very large dinner for us.  It was really hard because the lunch was so good!  Our innkeeper even came over while we were eating, and I think he might have been checking on how much we were eating!

The kids were excited to get a snow cone (or snow corn)! 

Matthew loved the grilled steak and would have eaten much more if he could!

A few pictures of the beautiful town.

When you arrive at the inn, you remove your shoes and wear the slippers they provide.  You wear those slippers everywhere around except for when you remove them to go on the tatami mats and in the bathroom.

When you are in the bathroom, you wear special bathroom slippers.  You never wear these outside of the bathroom.

This is the dining room.

Saying goodbye to the inn!  Such a beautiful place.