Our night in a traditional Japanese Hotel

I really wanted to stay in a Ryokan at some stage in our trip, so I specifically planned it so we would stay in Nagano Sunday night. We were lazy and caught a taxi when we got back to Nagano from seeing the snow monkeys. Our Ryokan turned out to be in a very traditional part of town, and right near a temple. Check in went a little bit awkward. Luckily, again, I had read you need to leave your shoes at the door and make sure not to step on the outside floor with your socks. After putting on our slippers we were taken to our room and served tea. I hadn't read that you aren't supposed to wear your slippers on the tatami floor, and we got scolded for that.

Looking tired because we just woke up!

After we had our tea we went out to explore the area a little bit. The temple grounds were massive and included a lot of buildings. We treated ourselves to a local speciality of steamed dumpling, with red bean inside. It was quite good. We went back to our room to find our futon beds being laid out for us. I have read reviews of the internet that say the futons are surprisingly comfortable. Maybe those people didn't have rice pillows as well. I found out in the morning, the underside of the pillow is actually feathery and much more comfortable.

Our Ryokan

We had dinner and breakfast included in our room and we were called to another room downstairs for our meals. I thought I was prepared for the food, from reading reviews, but I wasn't fully prepared. We both like raw tuna sushi, but a few large slices of raw tuna are just not appetising on a cold night. That was possibly some of the best of it. The worst was the fish custard. I'm not sure what it was exactly, but we're going to call it fish custard, because that's essentially what it was. It was the consistency of custard but with an icky fish flavour. I had three goes at eating it before I gave up. I was excited when some rice was brought out, only to find it had tiny whole shrimp all through it. That was OK until you got an antennae thing. Brandon was a bit afraid of the raw prawn, but it was actually ok. Raw things are fine to eat, unless they're chewy.

Raw prawn yum yums!

A whole cold but cooked little fish and tiny raw squid among the tasties on our plate

So much food!

Tiny whole shrimp in rice!

We both had our own little moments where food didn't want to go down and stay downs. Brandon's was with a large, chewy piece of raw fish and mine was with a large piece of cold tofu. We had some really tasty grilled tofu the night before for dinner. You wouldn't guess this was the same thing, only cold. By the end of dinner there was more laughter happening than eating and we had given up on finishing everything in front of us.

I had a terrible night sleep, partly because of the super thick doona making me too warm, and partly because of the hard bedding situation.

Excited for breakfast!

The next morning we were up bright an early, because apparently we can't sleep in on holidays. We were called down for breakfast again and my stomach did a little flip when it saw fairly similar offerings to last night's dinner. There were some nice green beans in a red bean paste that were tasty, and eggplant with a sticky sweet sauce. That's where the things I ate easily stopped. Except the plain steamed rice that is. I couldn't even manage much plain scrambled egg. I hate egg. Everything was just so fishy flavoured, and the kind of fishy flavour you try to avoid. Like slightly old fish.

This morning we packed up and headed to Kyoto on the train. Just as we were heading out the Ryokan, it started snowing! Falling snow is amazing! I'm not sure I will ever be able to ignore it like everyone seems to. It's mesmerising to watch. If only it had snowed while we were skiing.

I'm getting snowed on!

I would definitely recommend a stay in a Ryokan, including food. Just be prepared for the food. I wouldn't book us in for it again, and I'm glad we're not spending out whole trip on futons. It's one of those things that I've crossed off and I'm good with not going through it again. Those steamed dumpling though, yum!

To get to our next stop Kyoto, we took a limited express train to Nagoya and then a Shinkansen the rest of the way.