Hostel with traditional Japanese rooms, futons to lay out on the floor, and traditional under-table heating where you sit with your legs under the table and get lovely and warm. There are (seperate male and female) onsens downstairs, which were really hot (too hot for me to get into, but I enjoyed interacting with the Japanese family who were much better at getting in). My husband said the mens baths had an outdoor area, I don't know if the ladies also had one which I missed or not. Note that you can hire towels from reception if you haven't brought your own. We chose this because it was close to the snow monkeys so we could walk there rather than get the bus (approx 20 mins walk to the entrance, then about 25 mins walk up the path), but I'm so glad we did because it was a wonderful place to stay. We booked a room with shared bathroom (because that was all we could see online) but when we checked in the receptionist offered us the chance to upgrade to one with our own toilet which we did (only about 1200 Yen more). There was a communal kitchen area on the floor below ours, which was useful for making hot drinks, would have been a bit of a struggle to do much more than that I think, although there were lots of pots and pans. We arrived a bit early and had hoped to drop our bags at reception before check-in time, but the doors were locked so we carried on down the road and explored the delighful area and found a lovely little beer taphouse, so the time passed quickly and enjoyably! For food, we walked down to a Ramen noodle house just down the hill (cash only) which was very popular and got full soon after we got there with people queuing for tables. There didn't seem to be too many other places to eat in the close vacinity.
