"The ryokan tradition might be one of the world’s longest-running hospitality genres, but in Japan, there’s a distinction between “traditional” and “old-fashioned.” And while Kanamean Nishitomiya has plenty of connection with the past — for one thing, it’s a 19th-century townhouse, a rarity in Kyoto — a stay here isn’t a trip back in time so much as it is an experience of Japanese hospitality stripped down to its essence." - Tablet Hotels