KYOTO: The Ultimate Japanese Experience : The Inn of Your Dreams : Immersion in Ancient Custom at the Tawaraya

This is how it was for me. I was in Tokyo, tripping over stockpiles of luggage in neon glass-and-brass hotels, bilingual three-ring circuses built solely to provide shelter. Instead of finding the Japan of my dreams, I found a city hell-bent on becoming modern.

I went to Kyoto because I wanted to see Japan’s ancient spiritual capital. But more important, I was on a pilgrimage to the world’s most famous ryokan, Tawaraya, a Japanese inn of legendary refinement and, it must be admitted, more than modest cost (rooms begin at $320). After a 2 1/2-hour bullet-train ride from Tokyo to Kyoto, I found the Japan of my dreams.

Tawaraya’s name (which roughly translates as “old rice bag”) may not have the same kind of instant recognition as the Ritz in Paris, but this 19-room inn is the Japanese equivalent of the finest hotel, and is even more seductive because one gets a sense of staying in a private home.

A special hospitality swept out the entrance the moment my taxi pulled up in front of the two-story inn. The stones of the entrance had been ritually washed (an act of purification and a sign of welcome) and I was greeted by three members of the staff: the squat shoe-keeper, Sakuzo Matsushita; Fumi, my jyochu-san (lady-in waiting) in her neat silk kimono, and the ebullient general manager, Mr. Yamaguchi. They offered me a kind of graciousness and hospitality fit for a feudal lord. Robert Burns, past chairman of the board of Regent International Hotels in Hong Kong, had told me how it would feel: “It will seem as though you have walked into a painting, like you’ve taken a magic carpet ride into another world.”

As I contemplated my surroundings, all the images of old Japan suddenly snapped into place. It really was like my Japanese art books--the calligraphy prints, the translucent shoji screens, the lacquered chests, the gauzy colors. The shoe-keeper helped me out of my shoes and into silk slippers. There was none of the reception desk clutter, none of the gosh-awful computer environment of Tokyo. I noticed someone in the office bowing as he spoke into the telephone.

The shoe-keeper followed respectfully behind with my suitcase as Fumi, in her white-gloved feet, led me down a maze of winding corridors past tranquil gardens, Korean chests, hand-painted screens, scroll paintings, an extraordinary array of treasures. We padded silently on a dark wooden floor that glistened by candlelight. Without her, I couldn’t have managed; for starters, I wouldn’t have found my room. The inn seemed to be built on the “hide-and-reveal” principle, and although it is booked to capacity year-round, no one else seemed to be around--no samurai, emperors or shoguns.

In keeping with Japanese tradition, the family who built Tawaraya, the oldest ryokan in Kyoto, believed that the fundamental elements of all things are found in nature and that benefits come to people who situate themselves properly with the landscape. Guests should always have something beautiful to look at, so each room had its own undisturbed garden view. My garden had Japanese maples, ferns, a tiny lake of gravel next to the mossy earth, black stones that glistened in the rain, and a lantern. Everything had been trained, trimmed, pruned, immaculately swept and clipped. There was not a stray leaf or a twig anywhere. In one corner was a stone cistern with a wooden bamboo ladle, and the only audible sound was that of a tiny waterfall--the sound of water dripping.

No one had gone through the house gussying the place up. Inside my bare but elegantly ornamental room was an entry foyer with three modern chairs arranged for Westerners (gaijin) and a large sitting room covered with pale, black-bordered, sweet-smelling tatami mats, springy and soft. In the center was a lacquer table and two chairs with bamboo backs and zabuton (silk-covered cushions) but no legs. There were no silly bouquets--just a single perfect Casablanca lily in an ikebana arrangement in the tokonoma, a peaceful alcove for contemplation and prayer.

I soon began to think of 67-year-old Fumi, a lady-in-waiting here for 37 years, as my Zen master furthering my ryokan (pronounced ree-o-KAN; singular and plural are the same) education. She showed me that I must be barefoot on the tatami mats, but in the foyer and dressing area I could wear my slippers. She helped me shed my clothes and climb into a yukata (a light cotton kimono with a silk sash) and introduced me to my zori (wooden clogs) for walks in the garden. She demonstrated the few concessions to modernity: the air-conditioning controls, the antique rotary-dial telephone, and how to get Japanese soap opera on my television set.

There was a bathing room (with shower and tub), a tiny lavatory with copper washbasin, and a vanity area with hair dryer, shampoo, body lotions, a scale and beautiful soap wrapped in silver paper. My closet, wallpapered with antique sheet music, contained a wardrobe of yukata and kimonos. And a room key? Not necessary here.

Fumi left briefly but returned smiling. She sank to her knees with a cup of green tea, a plate of cookies and a steaming facecloth rolled up like a scroll--another symbol of welcome. I wanted her in my life forever.

I flunked bath-taking. Fumi filled the deep hand-crafted tub of fragrant cedar with water, covering it with three broad planks to keep it hot until I was ready. Being an impatient soul (and a sometimes-ignorant traveler), I immediately plunged in and started shampooing my hair. Fumi showed me that we don’t do things in ryokan like we do back home. In Japan, bathing is an ancient ritual of relaxation. You scrub first in the shower, then soak in the tub. And so, after a Western-style shower, I entered the tub once again, breathing the moist, perfumed air that rose from the water. Here I could empty my mind of worldly distractions, meditate and come to know myself better. Except I was boiling. It seems to be a Japanese bathing tradition that the epidermis must be scalded, so after a few minutes, I broke protocol and added cold water.

If you don’t like Japanese food, go out for dinner, but if you are wise, you won’t pass up the traditional kaiseki style of cuisine that evolved in Kyoto. Each evening, Fumi presented me tiny portions of seven or eight different dishes--seafood, rice and vegetables--served in candlelight on wood, lacquer, pottery, ceramic, porcelain, bits of leaves. One evening I counted 15 different bowls, cups, dishes, plates--no two alike, all beautiful.

Fumi knelt beside me, offering each portion as a gift, making perky room-service attendants seem like amateurs. One night we cooked shabu-shabu over wood charcoal; the dessert was beautifully peeled grapes.

After dinner, the futon-making ritual began: Fumi and her apprentice transformed my dining room into a cozy sleeping area. Concealed behind rice-paper sliding doors was the futon mattress, a cotton pad, a silk coverlet, linen sheets (silk in winter), a linen comforter and two pillows. Their movements were unmistakably elegant: plumping pillows, rolling and unrolling the bedding, patting linens smooth, straightening corners. A lamp, a flashlight and a Seiko alarm clock were moved next to my bed. Fumi bowed out and the shiatsu massage lady arrived to knead my tired back.

Even though I hated to drag myself out the door, Tawaraya’s owner, Toshi Okazaki Sato, helped me find my way to the best antique shops (a 15-minute walk) and planned my assault of the nearby temples, shrines and gardens. Afterwards, I felt holy but weary (a day of temple-hopping can be brutal) and was relieved to slip back inside the secure, serene embrace of the ryokan. The longer I was there, the better I felt. Fumi was a treasure, reminding me of my grandmother. Tawaraya felt like the fixed center of the world to me, and I had never experienced better care. There wasn’t an awful lot wrong except that I would have liked a direct-dial phone and better reading light.

Trying to compare a five-star European luxury hotel to a Japanese ryokan is like comparing Freud to Shakespeare. It can’t be done. But I feel certain that every Tawaraya guest has experienced Japan’s cultural inheritance. Mrs. Sato’s silk-bound guest books hold hundreds of messages from her stellar clientele: Swedish King Carl XVI Gustav, Pierre Trudeau, Leonard Bernstein, Willem de Kooning, Jean-Paul Sartre, Betty Ford, Isaac Stern, Linus Pauling, Baron Elie de Rothchild, John D. Rockefeller IV, Katharine Graham, Alfred Hitchcock, Leonard Bernstein and others.

With great sadness, I packed, settled my bill and waited for my car. They all waited with me--Fumi, Mr. Yamaguchi and the shoe-keeper. Mrs. Sato was there to tell me that if I returned, Fumi would be there for me.

As my taxi pulled away, I looked back for one last glimpse, and the little cluster stood there, bowing very low. I waved. As we turned the corner, I looked back again, and they were still there, bowing in the rain. “Many people have tears when they leave,” Mrs. Sato had told me. The chances are excellent that you might cry. I did.

GUIDEBOOK

Kyoto’s Finest

The Tawaraya: Fuyacho, Oike-Sagaru, Nakagyo-ku, Kyoto, 604, Japan; from the United States, telephone 011-81-75-211-5566, fax 011-81-75-211-2204. Tawaraya hospitality does not come cheap. Rooms 35,000 to 90,000 yen (about $320-$820) without meals, which cost extra. Dinner 10,000-30,000 yen ($90-$270), Western-style breakfast 2,500 yen ($23), Japanese-style breakfast 3,000 yen ($27); all served daily. A 15% service charge and 6% value-added tax are added.