This was our first time ryokan experienced in Japan, so didn’t really know what to expect. We decided to take a walk from Echigo-yuzawa station to the hotel bcos the shuttle bus that we’d requested earlier didn’t showed up. It was a short walk, actually, about 10 minutes walk but uphill. Check-in process was smooth. All staffs were nice, attentive and very welcoming. Some staff spoke english quite well. And boy how I amazed with that room! Very nice and clean and surely bigger than any room that we’d ever stay in Japan. And what made me even mesmerized by this was our own private open-air hot tub overlooking to beautiful view of mountain and forest covered by snow. Lovely! Also, we really enjoyed looking how they arranged futons for us to sleep that night. I also managed to try their common onsen located on 6th fl and 7th fl. All were warm and nice and very relaxing. But my favorite one was on the 6th fl where there outdoor onsens were. There were so many onsens to choose from. Nice! Breakfast was japanese style and it was nice, quite good spread and the taste was good to our liking. All in all, we had amazing stay in this hotel. It was very warm and homey. We didn’t feel like we were strangers in this place, even though we seemed to be the only foreigners here. It was like staying at grandma’s house, on another level.