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Kagaya Inn Wins Top Ranking in Japan 28 Years in a Row

Where: 80 Yobu Wakura-machi, Nanao, Ishikawa , Japan, 926-0192

Japan might be famous for kinky love hotels or claustrophobic capsule hotels, but the real Japan is something you’ll find in a ryokan, a traditional Japanese inn. When the Sydney Morning Herald tried out the Kagaya Inn in Ishikawa prefecture recently they discovered it has been voted the best ryokan in the whole of Japan for the last 28 years running. There must be something good about it.

And there is. Kagaya has a hot spring attached, with baths and pools running over three floors--gender-segregated floors, because the Japanese do all this bathing naked. They also have rooms which, by Japanese standards, are enormous, and they’ll serve your ultra-attractive dinner there too. Ultra-attractive, but perhaps a little scary, because it’s likely to contain pickled sea snails and sea urchins.

As you might expect in a traditional Japan, the service is beyond perfect; sometimes thirty staff line up to bow and greet the incoming guests. For this privilege you’ll pay around 29,400 yen ($300) per person, which includes breakfast and dinner and all the naked bathing you can handle. Absolutely worth it, we think, and you might never want to come home.

[Photo: tokyofoodcast]