Ryokan Stay!!

We headed up to Hokkaido and over to a hot spring resort town - Noboribetsu. We stayed at a beautiful old ryokan - traditional Japanese inn - called Daichi Takimotokan.  The hotel is well known in Japan for its many baths. I think the hotel has about 40 baths. We did our best to try them all!

The room is Japanese style.  So when you first enter, there is an entryway for you to remove your shoes, then you enter the main room which has a tatami floor.  The room is set out with a low table, ready for you to enjoy some Japanese green tea and omochi, a sweet cake made from pounded rice.

Rose enjoyed making and pouring our tea.  The tea is quite bitter, but complements the very sweet omochi.

We went to the onsen before dinner. Getting in the spirit, we all donned our matching yukata.

After dinner, we came back to the room to find it had been changed for us, with futon on the floor for us to sleep.  We slept so well!

There was a sign in the room to request that we didn't open the mesh screen which covered our windows because neighbouring crows had a habit of flying into fully opened windows and wrecking havoc in the rooms! We didn't have any crow visitors but we heard plenty of them.