Ryokan Terazuya

We were shocked by how HUGE our room was (20 tatami mats!) for such a reasonable price!! The owners speak only a bit of English but were extremely friendly. We opted for breakfast only, but it was both ample and tasty. No private toilet or bath, but we had no trouble using the very clean facilities when we needed them. The inn is easy walking distance from Matsue station and only about a 20 minute walk from Matsue Castle as well.

This small ryokan was a delightful place to stay in Matsue. The host was charming and made me feel very welcome. For me, it was a great adventure to stay in a traditional inn, sleeping on a futon on the floor in a tatami room. I enjoyed it very much.||||The room was simplicity itself, but contained everything I needed. The toilet and shower room were shared, but that is part of the experience. ||||I slept amazingly well on the futon in the tatami room, my first experience with such sleeping arrangements. My room was quiet and comfortable.||||The host speaks only a limited amount of English, but he can communicate very well. You will enjoy meeting him. ||||To reserve a room it was necessary to send an international fax, a procedure which was unfamiliar to me. However, I found it to be easily accomplished from a copy shop in my neighborhood and it only cost $2.||||I strongly recommend enjoying both the Japanese breakfast and the Japanese dinner at the inn. The meals were fabulous - authentic Japanese style meals with local specialties. ||||The inn is a short walk from the train station. I found it to be an easy walk, even while dragging my wheeled suitcase behind me.||||Matsue is a nice town with plenty to see and do for a couple of days. However, for me, the highlight was the hospitality and charm of the Terazuya Inn.

We only stayed one night in Matsue, so our visit was a little rushed. However this ryoken was a great choice. It is a ten minute walk from the JR station and is easy to find. Our room was quite large but the toilets and bathrooms are shared. You can elect to purchase breakfast and dinner, which we did. The meals were delicious and quite traditional. If you can afford the meals then definitely buy them. The big bonus were the very friendly owners. They went out of their way to ensure that we got the most out of our short stay in Matsue. I would certainly stay here again.

My partner and I included Matsue on our itinerary to see some of Japan off the mainstream tourist trail. So glad we did, it's a beautiful place with plenty to see and do. As part of our trip we also decided to mix up the accommodation and stay in a ryokan and hotels. This ryokan is one of our favourites - mainly because of the lovely family that run it.||||It is basic, but safe and clean. The toilets and bathrooms are shared, but this is not really a problem as you are really there to explore the city and surrounds. The highlight of our stay was the breakfasts, and on our last day, we had the pleasure of sharing a traditional tea making ceremony, which was very special. ||||The family clearly loves what they do, and their interactions with their guests, and they have a wonderful sense of humour. I would not hesitate in staying here again.

This was our first extended experience of futons, we stayed three nights and although our room had nowhere to sit(chairwise) by the time we had returned from our days outing we really didn't need to sit around much before crashing out. Our room was large, on the first floor with quite steep stairs. If you have big feet take off your house slippers as you may find yourself back at the bottom of the stairs. The only possible issue is that the trains go past fairly close on an elevated line, initial concern about this was put to rest when the trains stopped at about 10pm.||The food, both dinner and breakfast were plentiful and delicious If you enjoy Japanese food this optional extra is a must. Making your stay even more special is Terazu and his family's kindness and hospitality. Their place is handy to the station, a ten minute walk along the railway line. If you are unsure the tourist information centre will give you precise directions. ||You are only ten minutes walk from from water where you get a perfect view of the su setting across the lake.

We got to the inn after 6, and the very nice man who spoke a little English, checked us in and suggested we go to Lake Shinji for sunset. |The inn is in a small alley across from the Shirakata tenman-gu shrine and has loud trains in the distance, but our book said that there isn’t much traffic at night, which turned out to be very true. No real cars were heard at night, tho during the day the ones that do go down the alley fly by. The lake is right near by as is a 7-11 and the walk to the station is about 10 minutes. The lobby has a bell to ring for service if no one is around, since they have a restaurant that they work at. Downstairs is the shower room, just one however, which could be an issue if the inn is full, tho it was open 24 hours making it more convenient than in some inns, and there were 2 toilets on both levels, one each of Western style. There are sink areas with some toiletries, and we got tooth brushes and paste in our rooms plus a barley tea in a thermos and a small sweet cake. The barley tea was kept warm in a Thermos and tasted nice, tho cold barley tea is not something I like. The cake is one of the type of sweets offered in Matsue, a sweet cake flour with a little icing, no bean paste. Our room (really rooms) were huge. We walked in with the man who showed us all the amenities of the inn, and then upstairs into our room. There was a sitting room with a very low table, a TV, and cushions along with an area to hang clothes. The other room was the sleeping room with futons, sheets, duvets and rice pillows, with bath towels, hand towels and yukatas and haoris. The screens were all the same scene spread out on 4 different sliding doors, very tasteful and lovely tho they were a bit worn, faded, torn in some areas, and stained with what looked like water damage. The place is a bit older with some need for TLC, but the welcome is fantastic, the room large, and there are enuff toilets for all the guests. Our book told us that there was free toast and coffee for bfast, it was actually yogurt, fruit and cereal for those not paying half board. |Woke the next am with plenty of room to do exercises and lots of light from the windows. Sliding doors and windows stick as they need replacing of the plastic slider that lines the track, but the room is large, comfy and homey. The staff was very friendly. They had slippers for the guests to wear inside, and the shower room had two showers, a small bath, shampoo and soap bar. The temp was good, the pressure just so-so. However the toilet room stank, and it seemed to be a sewer issue, not a lack of cleaning.|Either there aren't any trains that go by at night or there were fewer, b/c they didn't bother us at all. They were loud and rattled the building during the day, tho we ended up tuning them out after an hour. The paper windows over the regular galss ones, helped to keep in warmth at night tho they did allow in all the early AM light to wake one up with the sun, or a tad earlier. |We ate a small but satisfying meal, of vanilla yogurt (2 ounces), toast bread with jam, a strawberry, orange piece and a tofu square plus tea or coffee. The couple next to us were having the Japanese bfast, and It seemed reasonably sized, with what we had plus fish, miso soup, a tofu/veggie dish and one other offering. |Well, turned out that with our language difficulties that tho we bought bfast for the checking out day, due to my not understanding that the inn would feed us early and take us to the bus, we didn't need to. They had bfast ready for us early, in fact, they had made the full bfast for us as a gift. The man took a pic with us as he is short, and I esp am not. Really nice people, and comfy inn. They then took us to the train station where we were to board our bus to the Shichirui ferry port to the Oki islands. I would definitely recommend this place to stay.

This ryokan had good reviews in guidebooks, but to us it was just slightly above average and that's mainly because of the food, which was very good (huge Japanese dinner including delicious crab legs). We got picked up from the station which is always a nice gesture (walking takes only about ten minutes though), and the family that runs the place was friendly enough.||||On the negative side, our assigned room was cold and since it turned out the air condition was broken, we got to move downstairs to a small room attached to a huge "conference room" which was also ours but impossible to use in any way. There was a cockroach by the toilet and bathroom was small, for one person only.||||If you're going to Matsue on a budget, this is a okay place. Maybe our expectations were set a little too high.

Very friendly hosts who gave us a lift back to the train station on our way out. The place is clean and basic. The window to our room opened to the canal and the train track, but the noise of the train wasn't bad at all. They've a 10pm curfew.||||We stayed 2 nights, and would stay there again on our next visit to Matsue.