Shari Homestays

I booked a Japanese modern twin in the annex. When I saw the word of mouth, it was written that the annex was old, so I should stop, and I checked in with a feeling of tension. Doorman, front desk, high level! I felt the high level of hospitality. The room was ranked up to the main building. Moreover, it is upstairs. Although it has a city view, half of it has a view of the sea and the rooms are super beautiful. The tension is exploding! The dinner and breakfast were buffets, but I was very satisfied with the dishes that were quite delicious and crowded. Foreign staff were good at Japanese and felt the high hospitality. Foreign staff are equipped with a batch of flags. Since time is separated at night, if you check in late, the night meal tends to be late. It wasn't too crowded and I was able to eat rice relaxingly. The bath and sauna were very good. I was very satisfied. I don't come to Shiretoko easily, but when I come to Shiretoko again, I will be taken care of here.

This is a typical ’boom & bust’ hotel, like the thousands of similar hotels you see all over Japan. It’s enormous, with lobbies, restaurands an common areas the size of airport hangars, huge rooms with separate tatami areas and massive onsens. All of which is in various stage of decay. This particular hotel is set back from the harbour, up on the hillside, presumably for tsunami reasons, which means you have to drive everywhere, to the boat tours in the harbour and the really nice little seafood shacks on the waterfront. The hotel offers, like all Japanese hotels, a myriad of ’settu’ options, all very confusing: breakfast, dinner and onsen package. Ditto with unlimited sake. Lunch and onsen and a spa treatment; don’t take any of these. The food is terrible by Japanese standards, and the gigantic restaurant is more like a East German Communist Party Headquarters canteen circa 1953 than a restaurant. You know whst I mean. Our room was huge, but with peeing wallpaper, slightly smelly damp wall-to-wall carpeting and (my pet hate) one of those pre-fab plastic bathrooms which has all the solidity of a bouncy castle. Our friends stayed at the Kitanokobushi Shiretoko Hotel, and I wish we had too. This is actually built this millennium and is right on the water. I highly recommend you stay there instead. As for me, I am thoroughly fed up with these depressing, smelly 1980’s concrete monsters.

When we arrived hotel staff asked whether our trip is a celebration for some occasion? When we told him is a graduation celebration, they gave us 4 glasses of complimentary wine. What a great surprise. They also have nice photo gallery displaying Hokkaido native animals photos around the lobby. We had a super pleasant stayed here.

I chose this hotel because there is a large communal bath. I went to the bathroom thinking that there would be no small children after 22:00, but I had a child about ２ with my mother. The admission time is not fixed, so although I am a little disappointed, when I wash my body first, my child is making a loud noise. The content will be long, so it will be folded, but depending on the mother's response, it was a content that did not have to make a loud voice. Next, the child said ”pee”. There was a toilet right after leaving the bathroom, but my mother made it on the spot. Children (girls) urinate standing in the washroom, not toward the drain or corner (of course it's still out). My mother is showering toward it. Although there was a distance, the direction is facing me! I was stunned and wanted to yell, but I put up with it because I thought my child should not be traumatized. I urinate in my standing state, shower there, and scatter to what extent? I gave up because I had to pass by the site to go to the open-air bath I was looking forward to. Even if there are other guests, there are adults who are okay with this. No matter how clean the hotel is, it is irresistible because it is dirty by such guests. The other is an event at the breakfast buffet. It was just after the store opened, but it was quite lined up. A man dropped a small tong for miso soup ingredients (wakame?). I picked it up immediately and was looking for a staff member, but there was no staff member, and I put the tongs next to the ingredients. And when I got to my seat, I didn't go looking for the staff, but I started eating. I think some people were watching, but no one said anything. I think there were about 10 people in the meantime, but in my turn, the tongs were put in the ingredients and used. Due to the expansion of the corona, this is the situation where I am very careful about hygiene. In this case, I think it's a problem that the staff who can be called immediately were not in the dining room. It was a beautiful hotel, the room was large, and there was no problem with the customer service, but if you see people with such bad manners in just one night and two days, the impression of the hotel will be bad.

1. This hotel is the hotel I expect the most. The public facilities are very good, but the room we ordered belongs to the original old district, which is still relatively old. 2. The most inexplicable thing is that we ordered one berth and two meals, including dinner. As a result, the front desk informed that dinner must go down to the mountain to eat, and when you book the downhill bus, you have to wait a long time. Dinner was a salmon set meal and there was no choice. Although there are still a lot of salmon, but the meal is single, just a bowl of paella, not suitable for children. We were wondering, why ca n’t we eat at the hotel ’s buffet dinner. The front desk informed that the scheduled package is different, but in Ctrip ’s booking, it was not stated that the room package we ordered was to go down to the mountain for dinner, too Disappointed, I don't know if it is a Ctrip agent problem or a hotel problem. In short, the concept is stolen and the experience is very poor. If I can inform you before, I will not set the simple Yamashita course. 3. A tall and burly brother at the front desk is very arrogant and speaks English very quickly. Ask me one more question and I will give you a wink. It is very uncomfortable. This is the most arrogant attitude I have ever seen in the front desk of a Japanese hotel. In my impression, the Japanese people are still very friendly. It is rare for this brother to have a slightly discriminatory attitude. 4. There is no ice in Shiretoko this year, there is no ice at all. If you want to go for a walk on drift ice, it is recommended not to go. There is no ice at all. It is only informed on the same day that the trip is canceled. There is no ice. It is too depressed. He told me in advance that I wouldn't go to such an uninhabited place and went for a walk on drift ice, only to tell me there was no ice. Because Shiretoko transportation is very inconvenient, it can only be chartered, the cost is high, and the number of public transportation is very small. This hotel is on the mountainside. If you want to take a bus to get the bus terminal down the mountain, drag your luggage, even if there is a shuttle bus Very inconvenient. An unexpected surprise is that there is a drift ice festival in the sunset platform next door. The ice cave there is completely different from the ice sculptures in Harbin, like a natural ice cave, like a maze. Although small, it is very pleasant. 5. Hiking projects like girls are very tight and there are very few tour guides, but in terms of our experience, we can go by ourselves without a tour guide. The guided walking project is expensive and not worth it, because there is no big risk, you can go by yourself. We also see tourists walking on their own, and it is said that snow shoes can be borrowed at the visitor center. Even if you don't wear special snow boots, you can walk on the snow. Originally I expected to follow the guide and see wild animals such as foxes, but this time we didn't see any, just saw the deer. If you go by yourself, the only thing to solve is the traffic problem. There are buses to get there, but there is only one round trip a day depending on the time.

There is a transfer from the bus terminal, facing the sea in an inn with a woody smell, and the price is reasonable. I was taken from the Utro bus terminal and went straight to Shiretoko Nature Center by bus. On the way back, I arrived at the inn in 45 minutes on foot while watching the sea of drift ice. The room is not large but clean and the sea is also visible. There is also an open-air bath in time system, and the indoor bath is large and nice. There are owners and employees, so it feels good.