Wineshark Hotel Stay - Nanbuya Kaisenkaku 南部屋・海扇閣

Address: 青森県青森市浅虫蛍谷31

Tel: 017-752-4411

Website: https://www.kaisenkaku.com/

Date of Visit: 31 Oct 2019

With the sky darkening, we drove for 30 minutes to the hotel for the night, Nanbuya Kaisenkaku (南部屋・海扇閣), located at Asamushi Onsen (浅虫温泉) on the eastern edge of Aomori City. This ryokan has a total of 64 Japanese-style Rooms, 1 Special Room, 18 Western-style Rooms and 6 Western-style Twin Rooms, and is a barrier-free ryokan.

We had booked the Special Room (Room 860), on the top floor of the building. After registration the manager came to greet us and showed us to the room, which is very spacious with a Japanese-style half totaling 19-mat, as well as a Western-style half with a living room and a bedroom with twin beds. Unfortunately the room does not have private hotspring bath, but do have a western bathtub so guests can still enjoy a nice hot soak.

The room is definitely very large and can easily accommodate six or more persons. Among the two halves I would say the Japanese portion is more interesting and premium. I in particular like the wood carvings on the ceiling partition between the rooms. On the other hand the western-style portion is rather mediocre comparatively, giving me the general impression of a dated hotel unfortunately.

The public bath is on the 9th floor, and we decided to go for a dip before dinner. Apart from staying guests, the baths are opened to day-trippers also. The men bath is called Yunoshima with the theme of birds painted on the wall. The women bath is called Umi with the theme of Mutsu Bay. There is also an open-air bath looking out at the beautiful Asamushi Beach.

Asamushi Onsen is a sulphate springs (硫酸塩泉), colourless and having a high water temperature, good for ailments such as neuralgia, rheumatism and gynaecological diseases. I found the hotspring smoothing, and while the open-air bath is very small considering the number of hotel guests, the view is really nice, no matter during daytime or at night.

Feeling hungry, at the appointed time we went to the restaurant 海つ路 on the second floor for dinner, which offers a semi-buffet. The appetizers, sashimi, and soup dish were served, and guests could collect other food from the buffet stations. Quality of the food overall was quite decent, and changed some of my perceptions that buffet dinner would always be a disappointment.

After dinner, we came to the hotel lobby, where every night at 8:30 pm there is a Shamisen (三味線) performance. Shamisen is a stringed instrument that was developed by the Japanese after making some improvements from the Jabisen (蛇皮線), the snake-skin instrument brought over from Ryukyu, Okinawa. The performance was very good and while we could not understand what the performer said, it was good fun and we could not stop admiring the skills of the performer all the while.

With a good rest, the next morning I spent sometime looking out at the window to the Mutsu Bay (陸奥湾) and the Yuno Island (湯の島), before heading down to the same restaurant for breakfast. It was buffet-style with lots of different food and once again we had a hearty meal.

• 特別室 with two meals for two (69,300 yen)