

For our go to to the mountain resort city of Hakone, we opted to remain at a ryokan named Yama No Chaya in the hunt for an genuine Japanese expertise.
Ryokans are Japanese-style inns the place you may immerse your self in conventional Japanese tradition, and this could be our first time experiencing this distinctive lodging type.
For practically 50 years, Yama No Chaya has been nestled among the many rolling hills of Hakone, solely an hour exterior of Tokyo. The property is well-known for its onsens (pure spring baths) and delicacies, in addition to for attracting guests who come to see the autumn leaves change colors.
Yama No Chaya – Reserving
Our keep was booked by means of “The Ryokan Assortment“, a reserving portal that serves a number of outstanding Japanese ryokan amenities.
I initially meant to order a room at Hakone Ginyu on the advice of a good friend. Nevertheless, it was totally booked on my most popular dates, and Yama No Chaya was among the many finest obtainable alternate options.
For a ryokan, Yama No Chaya was fairly fairly priced. A lot of these stays can get slightly expensive, so I felt like it might be finest to begin off modestly for my first ryokan expertise. Plus, it appeared like a really enticing property from the pictures.
A one-night keep for 2 friends, together with breakfast and dinner, value us ¥70,000 ($642 CAD).
Word that ryokans usually set costs primarily based on the variety of friends, so if you happen to’re travelling solo, the worth will probably be a bit cheaper than reserving for 2 individuals.
At first look, this may appear costly for a one-night keep, however take into account that kaiseki-style multi-course breakfast and dinner are factored into the worth.
To finish our reservation viaTthe Ryokan Assortment, we had been requested whether or not we had any dietary necessities, after which requested to fill out a bank card authorization kind. As soon as that was executed, all the things was booked and good to go.
Yama No Chaya – Location
You may attain Hakone through the Odakyu Electrical Railway from Tokyo’s Shinjuku Station. The journey is about an hour to an hour and a half, relying on which prepare you are taking.
The common and specific commuter trains make numerous stops on the best way out to Hakone, and there’s additionally a “Romancecar” which has forward-facing seats and higher views from the home windows. This specific prepare can deliver you there barely sooner, however is topic to a further surcharge.
The city of Hakone is in a mountainous space famend for its onsens and breathtaking views of the volcano and Lake Ashinoko. Quite a few visitor houses are nestled right here, together with Yama No Chaya.
Hakone-Yumoto station, the native transportation hub, is a fast five-minute cab journey or a 15-minute stroll from Yama No Chaya.
It’s price noting that the hill is slightly steep if you happen to’re carrying any baggage with you – we opted to retailer our heavy baggage within the coin lockers at Shinjuku Station and solely deliver backpacks for this side-trip into the countryside.
The resort is situated fairly close to to Hakone’s well-known sights. A couple of locations inside strolling distance embrace the Amidaji Temple and Fukazawa Zeniarai Benten Shrine, each inside a 10-minute stroll from the property.
Nevertheless, most points of interest price visiting would require public transport or a taxi. The Hakone Shrine sits beneath the Mount Hakone volcano, and is a 35-minute journey by bus from Hakone-Yumoto Station.
Lake Ashinoko is one other widespread vacation spot. It’s a 50-minute journey from Tonosawa Station, which is simply an eight-minute stroll from Yama No Chaya.
Yama No Chaya – Verify-in
We arrived at 4pm and crossed over a stream through a wood bridge to reach on the resort.


As we made our manner throughout, we had been warmly welcomed by an attendant. On the opposite aspect was a single constructing nestled amid a bamboo forest, nearly camouflaged into its environment.
The environment instantly invokes a way of leisure and luxury as you enter this conventional Japanese ryokan.


We had been escorted to the entrance of the constructing, after which guided right into a peaceable wood construction adorned with Japanese tatami mats. These mats are generally used as flooring in conventional Japanese-style rooms.
Within the foyer, we met the workers affiliate who took care of us during our keep.

She then led us to our room whereas outlining the specifics of the property, resembling dinner and breakfast schedules, tub schedules, and the way all the things in our room operated.



One thing I didn’t anticipate when staying at a ryokan was how tightly all the things was scheduled.
Occasions being set prematurely for the meals made sense, in fact, because the meals would have to be ready; nonetheless, even the bathtub instances can be rigorously scheduled all through our keep.
There are 4 totally different communal baths right here at Yama No Chaya, that are separated by gender. All through the day, the baths are cleaned and rotated so that every one friends can expertise every of the baths at the very least as soon as throughout their keep.
Moreover, each set of friends had the chance to order one of many baths for personal use for a one-hour interval. Since we had been solely staying for one night time, we had been requested to lock in our tub reserving as quickly as we arrived to make sure we had an opportunity to expertise the personal tub.
We sat down in our room with the attendant and completed the check-in course of, wanting to delve into the ryokan expertise in its entirety.
Yama No Chaya – Yama No Yube Room
There are simply 15 rooms right here on the Yama No Chaya, every with a singular inside association and design influenced by Japanese teahouses.
We had booked the Yama No Yube room, which is a Japanese-style set of dwelling quarters that includes a tsukimidai terrace (moon-viewing deck) and an open-air tub with water from the native historic sizzling spring.

The Yama No Yube Room has a country environment, with charming conventional Japanese layouts and motifs. The room options tatami mats throughout.
Within the centre of the room is a short-legged desk with ground cushions for friends to sit down on when meals are served. Heat towels and tea had been proactively set on the desk upon arrival.



After dinner, the workers carry out turndown service by pushing the central desk down into the house alongside the underside, after which a futon is positioned on the bottom with mushy down comforters.
The sleeping association wasn’t totally clear from the pictures we’d seen when reserving, and I used to be considerably stunned that we’d be sleeping on the bottom – however it was very a lot one thing to be embraced right here in these conventional lodgings.


The room was undoubtedly on the minimalist aspect. Just some Japanese art work was displayed on the wall adjoining to the TV, after which a couple of flowers had been dotted round.


The room has an air conditioner within the nook, after which there’s a well-stocked pantry with a minibar, in addition to a espresso and tea station.


On the finish of the room is a coated terrace with two lounge chairs going through out for enjoyable. The huge home windows of the terrace divulge heart’s contents to the moon-viewing platform, with views of the greenery and mountains within the distance.


It’s price noting that Hakone seems to be inhabited by pretty monumental spiders, and so they’re fairly prevalent even when strolling down the primary streets of the village.
Yama No Chaya is not any exception, and there was fairly an enormous fellow who had made our balcony its house – though you progressively acclimate to them over time.
Down a brief hall within the room is the toilet. It’s fairly modest in dimension, however has a stunning design with a good looking brass faucet and a vessel sink.


There’s a stable vary of skincare merchandise supplied. Furthermore, an surprising trendy inclusion at this in any other case conventional ryokan was a Dyson hair dryer.


The bathroom chamber is situated on the far finish of the hall.

Word that there isn’t any “correct” bathe within the rest room; slightly, the bathe amenities share an area with the personal open-air onsen.
This creates a Japanese-style moist room, the place while you enter the bathtub, water pours out onto the ground throughout you earlier than draining away.
On this association, the bathe merely takes the type of a small bench so that you can sit down on when you wash your self utilizing a handheld bathe head.

The semi-open format of this moist room permits for the cool mountain breeze to blow comfortably into the realm, making for a really tranquil bathing expertise.
Moreover, a set of two yukatas and two heavier out of doors vests had been supplied on your consolation throughout your time on the resort.

Total, the Yama No Yube Room was fascinating and distinctive, definitely totally different from another resort we’d stayed at earlier than.
After settling into the room and sipping on some heat tea, we had been wanting ahead to the remainder of the ryokan expertise, beginning with our dinner scheduled for 6pm.
Yama No Chaya Ryokan – Dinner
Dinner at Yama No Chaya would served kaiseki-style, with a complete of 10 totally different programs.
Our desk was set in a stunning method, with a glass jug of water obtainable for hydrating all through the meal.

To start out dinner off, we had been offered with a couple of appetizers. Scallops had been executed in a dashi broth topped with radish and scallions, adopted by Japanese yam tofu accompanied by a ponzu sauce.



Each appetizers made for a palatable starting to the meal, with gentle tastes and fascinating textures. Particularly, the Japanese yam tofu was surprisingly creamy, serving as an intriguing car for the piercing ponzu flavour.
Subsequent up was the mochi rice cake, accompanied by miso soup and seaweed. The miso-topped mochi was barbecued over a charcoal grill in entrance of us, burnt to nearly a crisp on the skin, however nonetheless mushy on the within.

We then wrapped the mochi contained in the seaweed and took an enormous chew. This was a really modern strategy to eat mochi, and the miso sauce added a substantial quantity of umami flavour.

A savoury broth adopted this dish, alongside eel and mushrooms topped with yuzu.

I used to be impressed by the inventiveness of most of the dishes being served, and I noticed many new strategies of preparation, cooking, and consuming that I hadn’t skilled earlier than.
The fifth course was fish sashimi, accompanied by seaweed and soy sauce. This was then accompanied by Spanish mackerel with burnt pores and skin served with ponzu jelly and purple radish.


The sashimi was tasty and melted pleasantly in my mouth. In the meantime, the Spanish mackerel blended properly with the tangy flavour of the ponzu jelly, and was amongst my favorite programs of the night.
The next course was the “Atohassun” major occasion, fantastically offered with a variety of choices on present. There was all the things from boiled greens to native hen, sushi, and pickled barracuda.

Some objects definitely pushed our boundaries a bit when it comes to style. Though I like Japanese meals, I wasn’t blown away by each dish: some had been excellent, whereas others had been solely OK.
Nonetheless, as an genuine Japanese kaiseki dinner, it’s solely pure that there can be new flavours that I hadn’t but skilled and will not be totally to my style.
The spectacular “Atohassun” unfold was adopted by a couple of major programs: pathogen-free pork confit, after which marinated blue fish.
The pork wasn’t a favorite of mine. It appeared to have some Western fusion components, with the addition of lemon juice, tomato, and chilli flavours, which I didn’t assume labored very properly.

The bluefish was my most popular protein out of the 2, tender and delicate with simply sufficient umami to it.

The final course earlier than shifting on to dessert was a selection between koshihikari rice and do-it-yourself soba noodles. My companion Jessy picked the rice, whereas I enthusiastically opted for the noodles, dipping them in a lightweight soy sauce earlier than slurping them down.

To wrap up the meal, we had been offered with a dessert course of fruit jelly with custard pudding, in addition to warabi mochi and bracken dumpling.


We didn’t really know what bracken was and needed to Google it – it’s a fern-like plant, and the truth that it was made right into a candy and scrumptious dessert dumpling right here speaks to the creativity of the kitchen right here at Yama No Chaya.
Yama No Chaya Ryokan – Scorching Springs
Dipping into the onsens is a significant a part of staying at a ryokan. The water right here comes from the pure sizzling springs of Tonosawa, with its temperature adjusted to a tolerable stage after which launched into the baths.
Right here at Yama No Chaya, there are 4 totally different communal baths sprinkled all through the property. Every tub has a altering room that it’s essential to undergo previous to coming into the precise bathing space.
All of the baths are basically a big pool with piping sizzling pure water; it’s merely the format and ambiance that varies.
In an effort to rotate across the baths and take a look at each, Jessy and I needed to rigorously plan out our bathing technique primarily based on the rotating gender separation schedule.
The primary tub I visited, often known as Iwato No Notenburo, was situated in the course of the resort. This tub is adorned with a sizeable boulder that travels up the wall. The water pours out from throughout the boulder, whereas the remainder of the onsen is surrounded by stone.


Our subsequent tub, Keikoku No Notenburo, was arrange as a personal onsen solely for us in the course of the window of 11pm–12am the night time of our keep.
This one is surrounded by smaller stones, stone collectible figurines, and lighting dispersed all through the rocks. For sure, sharing the bathtub privately with a liked one was an exquisite expertise.



The subsequent morning, I visited Take No Yu, which is a set of two separate baths that had been housed in a single constructing, situated just a little exterior the resort’s major constructing down a stone path.
I appreciated the luxurious structure of those baths, as one has a central bathtub with a floral kind, and the opposite is zen-like, with water cascading out of a tall faucet.



The final tub, Kajika No Yu, was housed indoors. This tub was essentially the most simplistic, with none stones or distinctive motifs round it.


I didn’t really get an opportunity to go to Kajika No Yu, as I used to be fairly drained in the course of the night hour when males had been allowed entry; nonetheless, Jessy was in a position to take a dip within the morning in the course of the girls’s hours. I’d say this was the least aesthetically pleasing of all of the baths.
And lastly, there was the personal onsen in our room, the place we spent the final hour or so having fun with the atmosphere earlier than our 10am check-out time within the morning.
I have to say that I actually appreciated the bath-hopping part of this ryokan keep although I’m not an enormous bathing fan typically. It’s protected to say that if you happen to take pleasure in sizzling baths and thermal tradition, you’ll undoubtedly have an unimaginable time at a Japanese ryokan.
It’s price noting that at communal Japanese onsens, it’s customary to be totally nude, and there are indicators right here indicating that bathing fits aren’t allowed. That’s very a lot part of the tradition that you need to be conscious of if you happen to’re visiting a ryokan.
Yama No Chaya – Breakfast
After a snug sufficient night time of sleep on the futons on the ground, we had been handled to breakfast on the scheduled time of seven:30am.
Similar to dinner, the breakfast providing right here was additionally fairly in depth, served in a number of programs.

After a lightweight salad-style opener, we had been offered with an intriguing presentation of tofu wrapped up in fabric. The dish was served with soy sauce and congee.


Following these appetizers, then got here the normal unfold of Japanese breakfast objects, together with sashimi, miso cod, an egg dish, and greens, accompanied by a bowl of rice.



Lastly, the dessert was a grapefruit yoghurt jelly fantastically offered inside an precise grapefruit.
The refined sweetness was refreshing with the citrus aromas, wrapping up a fulsome culinary expertise throughout this ryokan keep.

Total, the meal high quality right here at Yama no Chaya wasn’t fairly Michelin-star normal, however it was nonetheless improbable.
The sheer variety of dishes offered was very spectacular, and although not each dish was extraordinary, we had been pleasantly stunned by the modern nature of most of the objects we sampled.
Yama No Chaya – Different Amenities
Along with the gorgeous mountain grounds and the onsens, Yama no Chaya affords a handful of extra shared amenities for friends’ enjoyment.
A bar is adjoining to the foyer and affords mountain views of Hakone to take pleasure in when you sip a drink. The bar shares over 80 totally different manufacturers of shochu, a standard Japanese onerous liquor.

Moreover, there’s a communal terrace with armchairs and recliners inside the primary constructing. In case you occur to have spare time between the inflexible meal and bathing schedule, the open wood space appears like a nice spot to chill out.


Additionally on-site is a modest reward store that focuses on regional crafts. Something from teacups and chopstick rests to bamboo woven baggage and artistic patterns is accessible for buy.
You may also discover some ice cream and a mushy drink dispenser, ought to that you must calm down after a shower.

Furthermore, vibrant yukatas in a wide range of patterns can be found for buy within the foyer.

Lastly, a washer and dryer can be found within the laundry space for a price for these staying multiple night time.
Conclusion
Our time right here at Yama No Chaya was a calming and zen-like expertise. Our solely gripe is we want it was longer, as we arrived at 4pm solely to take a look at at 10am the following day.
Our Yama No Yube Room supplied a tranquil setting to chill out among the many Hakone mountains.
Breakfast and dinner on the resort had been well-executed, with beneficiant servings that may absolutely push your tastebuds past their consolation and go away you with a really genuine Japanese eating expertise.
There was additionally an intensive set of baths. In case you’re visiting Hakone particularly to chill out within the sizzling springs, you’ll discover a multitude of bathing choices right here at Yama No Chaya, every with its personal distinct atmosphere.
I totally appreciated my first ryokan expertise at Yama No Chaya, and if you happen to’re new to staying at ryokans, this can be a fairly excellent spot to begin your journey at an affordable value level.
Personally, I don’t really feel a robust urge to pursue the ryokan expertise once more after having skilled it as soon as, though it is perhaps worthwhile to strive one other facility on a future journey to Japan to see the way it compares.