A Day at Mori no Auberge Mitsu

Schedule

Letting the forest set the pace

From check-in to check-out the next morning.
Nothing here needs to be packed tightly. What follows is one example of how a day tends to go.

Guests arrive from 15:00 and leave at 10:00, and between those two points there is no schedule to keep except dinner. Only three groups are in the house at once, so nothing has to be queued for and nothing has to be booked in advance once you are here. The bath is in your room, the forest is outside the window, and the evening moves at whatever speed you give it.

PM15:00

Check-in

Set your bags down at the edge of the forest. From here on, the clock stops mattering.

PM16:00

Forest bathing, from your room

Sit by the large window and take the air in. Listen for the trees moving, and for the birds.

PM17:00

Into the bath

Blend kumazasa, chamomile and whatever herbs are in season into a bath mix of your own, then get into the Shigaraki ceramic tub looking out at the forest. The water is heated — it is not a natural hot spring.

PM18:00

Dinner — the Japanese creative course

The produce of Atsuma, one plate at a time, with sake or wine from Yoichi if you would like it.

PM20:00

A drink in your room

Yoichi wine and Hokkaido cheese, with whatever music you want on. The forest gets quieter as the night goes on.

PM22:00

Sleep

No alarm, no television. Just the sound of the forest, and sleep that arrives on its own.

AM7:00

Waking, and a morning bath

Morning light through the big window, birds instead of an alarm. A bath while you look at the trees.

AM8:30

Japanese breakfast

Nanatsuboshi rice from the clay pot, a rolled omelette of free-range eggs, and dashi chazuke you make at the table with bonito flakes you shave yourself.

AM10:00

Check-out

By the time you have properly unwound, it is time to go. The quiet stays here, waiting.

Experience

Sleeping with the forest, waking with it

Turn the lights down and the only thing left is the forest. Shapes of trees outside the window, wind through the branches.

Later the eastern sky lightens, the morning comes through the large window, and the birds take the place of an alarm. You wake in step with the forest rather than against it.

That slow loosening of body and mind is, in the end, the thing this place is for.

Around

The day after

Lake Shikotsu, Lake Utonai and Tomakomai are all within about an hour by car, and each is worth a different season. New Chitose Airport is about 30 minutes away, which is why a night here often works best at the end of a trip through Hokkaido rather than at the start of one — you finish quietly, then fly.

See access and travel times

Letting the forest set the pace

The first day

The next morning

Sleeping with the forest, waking with it

The day after

Reservations