JAPAN `


MARI RYOKAN HOTEL The hotel, which has been around for half a century, mixes traditional ryokan elements with Western features in a secluded Japanese setting on Shodoshima Island. Your futons are prepared as you have dinner and


the staff who oversee the hotel’s eight rooms – each one varying in size and layout – go out of their way to make you feel at home. The hotel adapts the capacity of each room as and when needed. This may sound obvious, but it helps retain the ryokan’s enviable charm and eliminates the possibility of any overcrowding. My bath tub was located up a wooden spiral


staircase and came with a view over the rooftops of Shodoshima. It was a rather novel experience, made even more memorable after I opted to bathe with my legs dangling over the side of the tub as the sun rose. Shodoshima has a 400-year history of soy sauce


production. For foodies, recommend a visit to nearby Yamaroku Café where you can take a tour of the ancient production line. The nine-course dinner at Mari Ryokan was served with a choice of four soy sauces.


BOOK IT: Rooms lead in at £200. MARI.CO.JP


Dinner is an uplifting experience. We sit silently on the rattan floor, donning kimonos, ready to devour nine delicately prepared courses


Turrell and Walter de Maria – with the style of each artist in stark contrast to one another in both form and subject. While a visit during the Triennale is bound to deliver a heightened experience, art is always on show through the archipelago, with temporary exhibitions frequently cropping up across the isles.


Silence is golden


My Japanese adventure had started in the quaint merchant town of Kurashiki, with our home-from-home, the Ryokan Kurashiki Hotel – one of just a handful of hotels in the town centre – located by a canal. Dinner is an uplifting experience. We sit silently on Ìi À>ÌÌ> yÀ] `} ÌÀ>`Ì> }iÌÕ« ­> ®] and ready to devour nine delicately prepared courses. The only noise is that of the staff darting back and forth between the kitchen and our private dining room. Silence is not unusual when diners are enjoying a delicious meal; it is rather odd when the food hasn’t yet arrived at your table. But being so unaccustomed to our surroundings has left us stunned. The set menu is laid out in vertical columns – if you can


read Japanese. Fortunately, our waiters have written brief English translations for us at the bottom of the page. The food is sumptuous. Dishes of sashimi, olive-fed wagyu beef, octopus with miso soup, and somen noodles are delivered to our table, raised above a heated space in which we dangle our shoeless feet.


hadn’t expected was the island-hopping, art-fuelled adventure which followed.


I’d almost expected Japan to be like this. What I ª


OPPOSITE: FIRST ROW: Kurashiki; sculpture in Yokai Art Museum, Shodoshima; SECOND ROW: Art Base, Momoshima; writer Harry Kemble; Yokai Art Museum; THIRD ROW: Seto Yacht Charter; FOURTH ROW: Seto Inland Sea; ramen Credits: Shutterstock; Hositama


66 ASPIRE SEPTEMBER 2019 aspiretravelclub.co.uk


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