There are ryokans and ryokans

Left Kyoto today and headed to the beautiful island of Miyajima, a UNESCO world heritage site. We travelled to Hiroshima by shinkansen, then got a tram to the port and sailed to the island on the ferry. We knew we were going to be staying in a ryokan but never expected anything like this!

Ding dong! This place is something else – luxe de deluxe. When we arrived, our hostess greeted us and took us to our suite (see how I nonchalantly dropped that in). It’s stunning and enormous and gorgeous, just take a look at the photos. She served us tea while telling us about the facilities, checking what time we wanted our meals and discussing the menus. We couldn’t help feeling that we were in the wrong place!

But lovely and all as it was, we went out and took the cable car up Mount Misen, to view the island from above.

It was then back to the ryokan for dinner. My god, what an experience that was! We had decided on a fish menu and there were about a dozen courses – maybe it would be better described as small plates, but there were no actual plates – there were bowls, chalices, vessels, pots, slates, all containing differently prepared fish. The sashimi course was a dramatic presentation with ice, shells, flowers, sea weed, dry ice vapour, and of course, the fish. Then came the oysters, presented on a tiny brick oven and cooked at the table. The main course was seabream, slices of which we cooked in a soup which was bubbling away in little pots set over burners on the table. Our hostess was there to serve us and to explain to us what exactly to do with this plethora of alien commestibles.

Two hours later, when we got back to the room, it had mysteriously been transformed. The table was now in an alcove, the futons had been set out and the heat turned up. So we got into our jammies – sorry – yukata, and chilled in our suite. Mac then lowered the tone of the whole situation by insisting on wearing his “divine wind” headband, but in the grand scheme of things, why the hell not? We have our own private onsen – an enormous bath tub in a big wet room, so we’ll have a go at that before the night is o’er.

I make no apologies for the inordinate number of photographs in tonight’s blog but words can’t really describe this place, or our dinner or indeed, Mac in a yukata.

Night-night.