Staying at the Ryokan Hakushikaso in Nara

When Maki, CJ and I visited Kyoto five years ago, we stayed in a ryokan, or Japanese guesthouse. Ryokan are a huge tradition in Japan. They are often beautiful wooden buildings, the rooms are made of wood and have tatami mats on the floor, and they serve traditional Japanese breakfasts and dinners that take advantage of local foods.

Like last time, I used JapaneseGuesthouses.com to book a ryokan in Nara. We spent two nights at the Ryokan Hakushikaso in Nara, which is located close to the temple complex and not far from the train station.

You can spend a lot of money staying at a ryokan but the Hakushikaso was well priced. Our stay included breakfast and dinner, the rooms were large and beautiful, and there was a public bath on the 2nd floor.

When we arrived at the ryokan, we asked for dinner to be served in Grandma and Grandpa Tak's room at 6:30, which meant we had about an hour and a half to walk around the see the town. So we headed to the temple complex and visited the large template gate. The highlight of the evening was the deer! Nara is home to many, many deer that are absolutely tame. In fact, it's illegal to harm them and they are considered national treasures. As we were walking to the temple gate, a sweet potato cart went past us. I love sweet potatoes so Maki bought me a roasted sweet potato. I thought it was for me but Maki's dad said no, the sweet potatoes are for the deer! So CJ, MJ and I broke off pieces of the skin and flesh to feed some deer we found in a little park. There must have been a dozen of them surrounding us, begging for food. The boys were squealing with delight as the deer nuzzled them and jostled each other to get food.

The breakfasts and dinner were amazing! There must have been 8 or 10 dishes at every meal and each meal was different from the others. We're told that Nara is known for its oysters, fish and persimmon.

On our first night, I took a bath in the public bath and it was incredible. First, you wash yourself and then sit in this beautiful, tiled bath that can fit maybe 10 people. The baths are same gender only and I shared my bath with two other women. 

The boys were up very early both mornings so we gave them some electronics time to keep them quiet until breakfast time. This is them around 5:30 in the morning.

Here is one of the breakfasts, which included: rice, miso soup, tofu, fish soup, bell peppers with miso paste, fish and fish sprinkles.

Here's dinner on our second night, which included: miso soup, somen noodles, lobster, beef, chicken, fish, rice, and pickles.