I need to go through my photos from yesterday and pick out a representative few to show you before I can write up the Miyajima New Year’s trip, but I grabbed a few shots of our room at the ryokan in Kyoto before the sun started setting to show y’all. For those of you unfamiliar with the term, a ryokan is an ultra-traditional inn. You can get an idea of what old-style living was like in Japan. Well, for the well-off certainly, as we splurged for one that offers the traditional Kyoto kaiseki, or fine dining cuisine. They’ll be serving dinner to us in our room, where we will be dining privately.

It’s a two-room suite with private bath (although we have to leave the room to get to the bathroom, so no naked dashes from the shower!). This is the primary room, set up with the tea they brought us after we arrived plus our various electronic devices. Yes, it has wifi!

(A nearby shrine or temple is slowly ringing a bell as I type this, and with the snow falling outside and the faint grassy smell of the tatami mats, it’s really casting a spell.)

From the other side of the room, looking out through our little porch-like area. We’re on the second floor, overlooking the garden.

And speaking of the garden…

It’s starting to get dark, and with the heavy snowfall it’s hard to make out the garden, but the snow is beautiful in and of itself.

Straight ahead, from the window of the other room, overlooking a rooftop.

And finally, there’s a tree that has some sort of orange fruit on it. I can’t tell if it’s in this garden or a neighboring garden, but the fruits provide the only spots of color in this landscape right now.