Hoshinoya
 

This is copied from my travel blog. The blog also has a few photos; it's at http://travelwithtopaz.blogspot.com/.

Hoshinoya is a resort in the town of Karuizawa, about an hour from Tokyo on the Shinkansen line to Nagano. It is a blissful place and a great spot to chill out, sort of the anti-Tokyo.

Hoshinoya is an onsen (hot springs) resort built along -- or just about on top of -- a river, and water influences everything. You hear the sound of water everywhere when you're outside -- listen carefully and the sound is coming from multiple directions. There are two communal baths for guests, one a traditional indoor/outdoor onsen, and the other an indoor "meditation spa." The latter is special, and includes a set of rooms that grow increasingly dark.

There are 3 restaurants -- casual Japanese, formal Japanese, and casual French. I've stuck to the 2 Japanese ones (including a kaiseki room service set); the food and presentation were perfectly acceptable, but by no means exceptional.

The room accommodations are contemporary and comfortable. My room has an entryway, a bedroom with platform bed, living area with table and day bed, and a terrace with small table and day bed. As I recall, there are several different room styles available. Hoshinoya is not a small place by any means (maybe 50-60 suites?), and not all of the terraces seem especially private. The midweek clientele includes lots of families. As best I can tell, I'm the only Westerner here, but many of the staff do speak some English.

Karuizawa is at about 1000m/3300ft, so it's chillier than Tokyo. Fall colors have just begun, and there are plenty of trails for walking and enjoying the scenery.

Oops... when I opened your thread up I thought you were going to talk about Yoshinoya, the Japanese fast food joint... how I miss that place. The American version in New York just doesn't compare at all, and the Taiwanese version isn't much better.

I know you've planned on visiting Hoshinoya for a while and have posted the intention a few times on this forum, it's lovely to see your final report!

Photos are lovely, you obviously had a wonderful time.

(Here's a previous Hoshinoya report from Pickles for anyone else who's tempted to go)

Beautifully written!

As the monkees said "Well I saw his blog, now I'm a subscriber..."

I think the white balance is off in some of the photos, though.

Thanks, jib, and yeah the white balance is really screwed up on lots of shots. It's either time to get a real camera, or maybe learn how to use the one I have. I do wish I'd been able to get a better shot of the dear lady who was trying to get her Darling Doggie to pose properly and smile for the camera. It doesn't show very well, but FiFi had little ribbons in her hair and was wearing a charming sweater.

Thanks for the pointer to Pickles's post, LapLap. I'd thought I remembered him writing one, but a search in the Japan forum using FT's Fine Search Engine didn't get me there. (Silly me: I searched for the term 'hoshinoya')