Japanese Youth Hostels, Ryokans, Minshukus, and Capsule Hotels
 Our room in the Yakushima Youth Hostel
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 The communal room in the Yakushima Youth Hostel
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 A traditional Japanese dinner, served in our room at the Nakamuraya Ryokan – http://www.japaneseguesthouses.com/db/sapporo/nakamuraya.htm
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If you travel in Japan, there are a number of different types of places you can stay. In our travels around Japan so far, we’ve tried most of them:
- Ryokan: a traditional Japanese inn – Wikipedia has a good page on ryokans. You’ll sleep on futons on a tatami mat floor, and have a traditional Japanese dinner served in your room. They tend to be pricey but you can sometimes find affordable ones. When we visited Sapporo we stayed at the reasonably priced and very pleasant Nakamuraya Ryokan (pictured on the right). In Kagoshima City we stayed at the Nakazono Ryokan, which was a nice place to stay, but was actually much more like a minshuku…
- Minshuku: in my experience these are similar to youth hostels in the US. Bathroom and shower facilities are usually shared. Meals are not served in your room. What you’ll get for food may vary: some may offer breakfast in a communal room, others may simply offer a communal kitchen where you bring your own food, and some may not have a kitchen at all. During our 2004 trip we stayed at the Kimi Ryokan, but it really should have called itself a minshuku: all the facilities were communal, no meals were provided, and the guests were primarily noisy foreigners. In Tanegashima we stayed at the Tanegashima Miharusou, which was a relatively quiet, slightly rundown, but well run minshuku that catered to the many surfers that visit Tanegashima.
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The Oirase Keiryu Grand Hotel. This is where the conference took place, and it’s where we stayed. The grounds of the hotel, and it’s hot spring baths, were great
Hotels: western style hotels are common everywhere in Japan nowadays, except in the most rural areas. The only major differences from western hotels are that the rooms are typically smaller, and pricing is usually per person, not per room. They’re especially popular with business travelers who want a western style bed, and may not have the time for, or interest in, the amenities of a ryokan. When we visited Aomori in 2004, we stayed at the fabulous Oirase Keiryu Grand Hotel. Normally it’s not the kind of place that would be an option for us financially, but we were fortunate to have the room paid for by the folks sponsoring Maria’s conference.
- Capsule Hotels: these are unique to Japan – it’s kind of like sleeping in a cadaver drawer at a morgue, except there’s a small TV in your capsule instead of a freezer. It’s not the kind of accommodation one is likely to seek when on vacation (unless you missed the last train on a night of drunken revelry, and you don’t have enough yen to take a taxi or stay anywhere else). I’ve never had the experience of staying in one, but Wikipedia has an excellent page, with pictures.
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A room in the Miyanoura Portside Youth Hostel in Yakushima
Youth Hostels: I’ve saved these for last, because they’re the best. The Japan Guide site says Japanese youth hostels “…do not differ much from European or American youth hostels.” This could not be further from the truth. American youth hostels are more akin to Japanese minshukus: not always clean and not always quiet. We’ve stayed in 3 youth hostels in Japan (when we visited Nikko in 2004, and two in Yakushima this spring), and they were all immaculate and quiet, with attentive staff. All have at least a communal fridge and microwave, and some provide a communal dinner. They have communal bathrooms and showers, but in my experience they were always very clean. All have doors locked and lights out policies, usually around 10pm, so they’re not good options for nightcrawlers (but traveling with children, we thought it was great). They also offer common areas for the guests, so they’re great places to meet other travelers. In Yakushima, I enjoyed a long conversation (after the family was in bed) with a man from Yokohama who was planning to hike clear across the island. He gave me some good hiking tips and we shared opinions on various Miyazaki films. The youth hostels on Yakushima island are especially worthy of praise. The southern one is very nicely designed (pictured at the top of this post), has nightly communal dinners, the staff organize and lead hiking trips for their guests, and they offer car rentals on the premises. The northern one is more utilitarian (pictured on the right), but is very well run, and offers western style beds.
