Kinnotake Tonosawa

This was our second visit to this particular ryokan. We had such an incredible time our last visit that we decided it was worth doing again. The hospitality, location, and overall experience is such a perfect pause during a hectic Japan trip. While it's not a traditional ryokan / onsen, Julie and I enjoy being able to have a private bath so we can spend more time relaxing together.

Traveling to this ryokan and seeing it for the first time is like something out of a movie.

Hospitality

You're welcomed with such warm hospitality (plus tea and snacks). It always amazes me to hear so many languages being spoken. Japanese, English, Chinese, Hindi, Tagalog - the staff come from all over and it's a shock to be able to speak in English again after using my broken Japanese the entire trip.

The private onsen is something else.

Food

The food at Kinnotake Tonosawa is beautiful. Each course is prepared so meticulously (and photographs well!). While we wouldn't necessarily choose to eat this for every meal, the clean fresh flavors were a nice break from the fatty, unhealthy konbini food we'd been gorging on all trip. The surprising standout meal was the room service ramen 😅

We did have an unusual "first" for this trip though! In addition to seeing real life fireflies in Hakone, we got back to the ryokan late and a single staff member excitedly directed us to look outside at a dark lump clinging to the side of the pillar of the building. It was a ムササビ (musasabi) or Japanese Giant Flying Squirrel!

I had to channel my best paparazzi as it was fairly dark, but managed to snap this blurry pic.