A Kyoto Splurge, Measured in Tatami

A Dane discovers that hygge has an older, quieter, much more expensive cousin.

I am Danish. I have spent my whole life being told we invented cosiness. Then I spent one night in a ryokan in Kyoto and realised we are amateurs.

Ryokan Hanaori is in Higashiyama, eight rooms around a garden the size of a tablecloth. Breakfast arrived on eleven small dishes, each placed on the low table with a little bow, and I ate grilled mackerel and simmered tofu in a cotton yukata while the garden dripped. I stayed in the room until eleven. Nobody hurried me. This is what money is for.

The cherry trees were in full bloom, so I walked up to Maruyama Park, where the old weeping cherry stood like a pink waterfall and families sat under it on blue tarps eating bento. At Kōdai-ji I stood in the bamboo grove, which is smaller than Arashiyama's and has about four hundred fewer selfie sticks. Then Ishibei-kōji, a lane of stone walls so quiet I lowered my voice to think.

The real splurge was the evening: kaiseki at Shun no Oto, twelve courses, each one a tiny landscape. A clear soup with a single cherry blossom floating in it. Sashimi on ice, cut like jewellery. I spent more than a good bicycle costs. I would do it again tomorrow.

Lived April 04, 2026.