Ryugon

Ryugon is at Sakado 1-6, Minami Uonuma, Niigata. The Japanese page prints the postal code 949-6611. The telephone is +81 (0)25-772-3470. The desk is info@ryugon.co.jp. Book on ryugon.co.jp. They call it a manor house hotel for Snow Country, set in one of the snowiest parts of Japan, in the mountains of Minami Uonuma, a district they name for Uonuma Koshihikari rice. They say many of the guest rooms were salvaged from old buildings across Niigata, and that the house was much loved by literary figures.

At dusk the wings sit on a pond, a long veranda of lamps, forest in the mist behind. A tatami room opens onto that garden and the same water. In a kitchen, a cook and a guest work over a table of vegetables. Nine small bowls sit on a black tray. Under the eaves, rice straw hangs in a thick curtain. A sitting room looks back across the pond to a stone lantern.

The villa suite, in their wording, is a renovated Snow Country mansion. They also keep three private villas, traditional houses for exclusive rental, on the theme of traveling as if living. From Tokyo they say it is an hour and thirty minutes by bullet train to Echigo-Yuzawa, then their shuttle. Ask them for the rate. The rate is on their site.