Hotel Ethnography - Gion Furumonzen is a hipster hotel in Gion in Kyoto. This place has 55 reviews and an average rating of 4.7 of 5. This is a superb rating!
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Reviews from visitors:
Amazing staff who went out of their way to come and guide me to the location when I was unsure about the location.
Special thanks to Becky who took time to explain a few things when I had questions. Definitely will be staying again.
Queen room 5th floor.
Absolutely amazing experience!! Best boutique hotel that you can stay at in Kyoto. The staff is super helpful and friendly. Also, hotel is in a great location. It is very close to different train lines and the busy streets of Gion, however this hotel is located on a quiet side street. We would definitely like to return to Hotel Ethnography when we return to Kyoto and would recommend it to everyone that would like a clean and nice stay in Kyoto.
In short: Small and intimate hotel that provided exceptional service and experience of Japanese culture. Exceeded my expectations with the overall experience and friendly service.
Just a note of praise of all the little touches in the room we enjoyed:
1. Staff were friendly and knowledgeable in so many different languages. Considerate in small ways, like providing detailed recommendations of the area (we referred to the Hotel Passport all the time !) and offering to help us make reservations when needed.
2. Free smartphone service (Handy phone): such a thoughtful touch for our modern needs in the digital age. It comes with 4G internet that you can use for Google maps, browsing, calling, and as a hotspot. The browsing homepage is set to an English website with detailed articles recommending and reviewing common locations to visit.
3. Breakfast was spectacular and healthy (if we spent all day eating street food, we can at least count on our breakfast to be full of greens). The dining area and bento box portions were small, but it was understandable given that the hotel houses few guests and the boxes used famously high quality ingredients. We fell head over heels in love with the specialty bread and jam, we bought six bottles home!
4. The first thing we missed the night we checked out was the bed— we didn’t realize how spoiled by the amazing AirWeave mattress we were until we returned home and realized how much our backs and hips ached from our regular mattress.
5. Green tea and hojicha tea packs were wonderful. The ceramic tea cups in the room and at breakfast enhanced the taste of the tea and gave the simple act of drinking and brewing tea much more elegance. We have a newfound appreciation of pottery and tea after staying at this hotel. We went out of our way and visited a specialized tea shop (Ippudo) just to explore (and purchase) the different kinds of green teas Kyoto has to offer and even tried to attend a pottery workshop to make our own tea sets (we didn’t go because we didn’t make a reservation in time and we really should’ve planned that better). We really have to thank the hotel for this new interest!
Very minuscule complaints:
1. Little variety in breakfast bentos. Only two out of four dishes in the breakfast bentos change everyday, so if guests are not fans of the mixed greens and potato salad, they’re stuck with it. The hotel makes it up by providing ample options in the self-serve section for breakfast, which carries three types of delicious specialty bread, two kinds of jam, granola/cereal, wild berries, rice, and daily soup)
2. We got too used to the amazing high-tech Toto toilet. The smart toilet knew when we were finished doing our business and automatically flushed for us, and this made us develop a bad habit of thinking the toilet will flush itself when leaving the bathroom. There were a few too many times outside of the hotel where I’ve *almost* left the bathroom without flushing, thinking it would flush by itself. This is also another thing that we may splurge on when we get back home, which is, on top of the tea and pottery, more things for us to sink our money in ):
We stayed at Hotel Ethnography Furumonzen for 5 nights and our stay was perfect. Such a lovely hotel with welcoming staff, huge rooms (biggest we have seen in Japan by far!) and great artist contributions. Also in a lovely part of Gion, where we enjoyed walking along the river and waterways.
Our favourite accommodation in 3 trips to Japan now!
Great value for money and excellent English speaking staff. This is a great place that offers stand up showers and plenty of walking room in the bedrooms - something that is hard to find in Kyoto! Perfect for westerners who are used to more space.
Facilities including coffee, and bento box breakfast is also excellent and very handy. Both come at no extra charge. It's also a very convenient location and offers a unique story for all its elements, from painting on the walls to cups and cutlery, to the chairs you sit on. Each represent a local artist :)
There are some previous reviews which talk about light coming in from the outside - this has now been fixed with block out shades available.
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