마루이케 호텔

What to say about this place... It's bizarre because within the strange context of Shigakogen the hotel almost seems normal but to the ordinary traveller it is anything but. 1. The hotel has a distinct "the Shining" movie vibe, the hotel is a strange half abandoned time capsule from the late-90's and not in a good way. In the full creepy weird vibe way. Although the staff tells us it was fully booked we only saw a handful of people ever around which didn't help with the creepy vibes. 2. Objectively insanely bad value for money. I don't know much about Japan, but 200usd a night is not a 'cheap' option in most places, but for that you stay in a half-abandoned petroleum smelling hotel in the middle of no where that doesn't even have showers. Yes, that's right, no showers. You do, however, get a public bath (not included in the price). 3. I didn't know I could find Japanese food this bad. You're in the middle of nowhere, if you don't have your own car there are exactly ZERO restaurants or shops nearby (we tried every single other hotel within a 30 minute walk), so basically you have to eat what they serve you and it is not good. For 15usd you get the same exact breakfast every morning, a piece of bland fish, 2 cubic centimetres of omlette and some rice. Thank god for the 1 cup of drip coffee they allow you to pick up... Dinner somehow is even worse, for 25usd you'll have a choice between overcooked udon noodles in watery package-made broth, or a sort of hot pot of plain boiled pork and veggies. 4. The 'Onsen' or bathing room, is actually pretty nice. Sort of like going to visit a hot spring and it being your daily shower at the same time. However the fact you have to pay a mandatory 150jpy daily fee for it, detracts from it. So in summary, did we have a good stay? Actually, it was sort of hilarious, so we made the best of it so it was fun. Would I do it again or recommend it to anyone? Absolutely not. The hotel needs a serious update, and a bunch of disclaimer before booking.