
日本の小宿に受賞♪ しかしながら、努力がまだ足りず Kamesei Ryokan Selected as one of Japan's Top Small Inns
2021.01.12: 亀清旅館 Kamesei Ryokan, 青い目のおもてなし This American’s Omotenashi, メディア Media
In more media-related news, the on-line magazine of the JET teachers recently featured our inn including an interview on how this American-born innkeeper finds working in Japan. If you're curious, feel free to check out the following link:
またメディアで紹介して頂きました。JETの先生たちのディジタル雑誌で亀清旅館そしてこのアメリカ生まれの私が日本での仕事や生活についてのインタビュー。英語ですが、良かったらご覧ください。
A while ago, NHK World's "Where We Call Home" program featured Kamesei Ryokan and our owner, Tyler Lynch. It's a nice show about our efforts to survive the Corona pandemic.
ずいぶん前にNHK国際の番組で亀清旅館とオーナーのタイラーが紹介されました。ウィズコロナの努力の話など。良かったらご覧ください。
https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/ondemand/video/2087012/
亀清旅館の女湯に二つ目の露天風呂が出来ました: この狸色の信楽焼の浴槽。
今までの露天風呂は川の石(男風呂の側の[100年風呂」や木(女湯のヒバで出来ている一つ目の露天風呂)そしてタイルと檜の縁(貸切露天「しなの風呂」)でしたので、陶器の浴槽として初めてです。
私と若女将がわざわざ信楽へ行って、大きさと色を選んで、焼いて戴きました。そして私がお風呂の周り、デッキ、坪庭を作りました。
女湯の内風呂はこじんまりしてあまり広くないのですが、これでダブル露天を楽しんで頂けます。憧れられている信楽焼と上山田温泉の美肌の湯は最強の組み合わせです!是非に入りにお越しください!
Kamesei Ryokan's women's onsen now has a 2nd outdoor bath: this tanuki-colored Shigaraki ceramic bath.
The proprietress and I drove the 260km to Shigaraki (Shiga Precture, Koka City) and picked out the size and color, and had the bath specially made. Meanwhile, I made the fence surround, deck and pocket garden for the bath.
Our women's onsen has a fairly small indoor bath, but now guests can enjoy not one but two outdoor baths. And the Shigaraki ceramic is the perfect complement for Kamiyamada Onsen's skin-softening hot spring mineral water.
We hope everyone can come and take a soak in our new bath!
長野県の皆様、
県民限定「家族宿泊割引」は
12月28日〜1月11日までキャンペーン♪
1人1泊当たり宿泊代金10,000円以上、なんと5000円割引!
(5000〜10,000円未満は3000円割引)
当館「亀清旅館」も登録済みです。
詳しくはhttps://tabi-susume.com
年末年始はご家族で温泉宿でゆっくりお過ごしなされたら如何ですか?
写真の「安心旅人宣言カード」は必須となります。印刷するのは手間がかかるので、こちらで用意しておきましたから手ぶらでお越しになって頂けます。
To all Nagano-ites, from 28-Dec to 11-Jan the Prefecture is providing a discount of up to 5000 yen per person for families to stay the night at an inn or hotel. Our Kamesei Ryokan is a registered accommodation. Take advantage of this discount and enjoy a relaxing stay at our onsen inn the New Years!
冬は特に山の道は雪で運転が難しくなりますが、電車やバスが便利です。亀清旅館からの日帰り出先の人気スポット2か所の電車バス時刻表を作成しました: 戸隠高原と地獄谷野猿公苑。
Driving in Nagano in the winter can be difficult due to snowy conditions especially in the mountains. Fortunately, there is convenient train and bus service. Here are the schedules for 2 popular winter-time day destinations from Kamesei Ryokan: Jigokudani Wild Monkey Park (the famous Snow Monkeys) and Togakushi (snowshoeing paradise).
亀清旅館に一番近いアルプス登山が白馬連峰の唐松岳(2620m)。リフトで1830mまで登れるから本格的な北アルプスのデビューとしてお勧めのコース。軽くトレッキングしたい方には八方池まで登るのは良し、ハードな山登りしたければそのまま唐松岳まで「日本の屋根」の世界へ。
日本の屋根(唐松岳頂上と雲海)On top of the World (Mt. Karamatsu's peak looking over a sea of clouds)
私達は前日のお客さんを見送ってから白馬へ出かけた。登山口となる八方池山荘まで通常のルートは八方地区のゴンドラ「アダム」そして二つのリフトに乗り換えていける。(片道60分、往復で約3000円) 長野駅からの急行バスの八方バスターミナルからゴンドラまで歩けるから電車やバス交通には便利。車で行けば期間限定で黒菱第三リフトから1回の乗り換えで行けるけど、リフトまでの道があまりにもくねくねで結局ゴンドラ「アダム」経路の方が早い。(黒菱ラインは往復1200円.)アクセスの詳しく。
標高1830mの八方池山荘から2060mの八方池までは約60分(木の板のコースは少し長いけど、歩きやすい方)。晴れていれば水面で白馬三山が映るので神秘的な景色。(残念ながら、今回も込めて私は八方池へ4回行ってますが、いつも曇っていていた。)八方池までは一般的なトレッキングだが、それから唐松岳はちゃんとした装備(雨具や地図など)と山の経験が必要。唐松山荘(2820m)は約150分、頂上まではさらに20分。全体的に八方池山荘から唐松岳の距離は往復で10.2㎞。私たちは黒菱第3リフトに乗ったのは11:45ごろで、最終リフトが16:30だったから休みを少なくして早いペースで八方池山荘から往復で4時間15分で出来た。(標高差860mもあって!)
ほとんど最後まで曇っていた(途中は霧の中)が、頂上が雲の上だったので雲海が見えて、感激しました。頂上近辺に雷鳥も見えて、奇跡でした。
時季は10月の第1周だったので、標高1400m辺りからもう紅葉になっていた。平日でも大勢な登山者で賑やかでした。
アルプスを登ってみたい方には唐松岳がお勧めです!
Kurobishi #3 Chair Lift. You can skip the gondola by driving up to here.
リフトとリフトの間の湿原 Walk through a marsh in between the two chair lifts
数か所にケルンが立っている。Cairns mark the path in a few places.
八方池(晴れたら白馬三山の反射が最高)Happo Pond (Photogenic reflections of the 3 main Hakuba peaks if the weather is clear)
唐松山荘 Karamatsu Mountain Hut
奇跡の雷鳥 An elusive rock ptarmigan
(I was requested to write about running a business in Japan, and would like to share my reflections here.)
I run a traditional onsen ryokan along with some side businesses such as a rental cycle / guided cycling and walking tours program, an Uber Eats-like deal for local restaurants, and selling the Seattle-style cookies I bake for our guests over the internet. Besides these business activities, I also run a non-profit organization for promoting tourism to Nagano, called the NINJA Project.
For the ryokan, the inn had been in my wife’s family for several decades and the mother-in-law wanted to retire but didn’t have anyone to take over so she talked about tearing it down and making a parking lot. Most of the inns nearby have replaced their wooden buildings with multi-story ferro-concrete boxes. Our inn still has the original wood building surrounding a central garden with passageways leading to semi-detached guestrooms. If the inn had just been a concrete box, I wouldn’t have been sad to see it go. But I felt the wood buildings deserved to be around for at least another generation, so my wife and I sold our house and gave up our lives in Seattle to move back to Nagano and become innkeepers.
The eco tour side business is an attempt to take advantage of our town’s rural setting and the cycling possibilities with the Chikuma River Bike Path and all the great hill climb courses around.
The restaurant delivery and cookie baking resulted from the Covid-induced downturn in our inn’s business.
The biggest joy with running the inn has been being able to provide a place for guests to escape their hectic lives for a night and get back in touch with themselves. We often get thank you messages saying that staying at the inn let them recharge their bodies’ batteries. I feel that providing that experience has become my calling.
The biggest challenge with the inn has been making the necessary improvements. The mother-in-law didn’t have energy to do much needed maintenance and updating. Since we’ve come, I’ve built three outdoor baths with a 4th in the works now, and we’ve renovated several of the guest rooms to make staying in them more comfortable. We’ll never have all the modern comforts that the concrete boxes provide so another challenge has been to choose our guests better, i.e. attract guests that appreciate the classic ambience of an old-fashioned inn.
For anyone who wants to get into the business of running a ryokan, there are innkeepers throughout the country whose children aren’t interested in taking over and are faced with having to close their family-run inn. If you find one that fits your passion, start out at the bottom offering to work with cleaning or as a room servant and gradually work your way up. Learning the art of ‘omotenashi’ (Japanese-style hospitality) can be a life-long endeavor.
Actually running the inn is about 50% of my work. The other half surprisingly is all the work with the local ryokan association and the civic improvement work with the town and even the prefectural level.
Covid has fundamentally changed our operation. Up until now, we’d been focused on trying to max out our room occupancy. Now we’re trying to provide a higher level of service to a fewer number of guests. For example, after I get this latest outdoor bath finished, the next project will be to add a private outdoor bath to one of the guest rooms.
亀清旅館の新型コロナウイルス対応が下記のようにさせております。