Adam Wynn's Japan Blog: Manazuru fishing village

Manazuru is a typical fishing village located not far from Tokyo at the start of the Izu peninsula.
At the start of a four day road trip we stopped there for a delightful night in a Minshuku.

Great seafood and green mountains behind.

Accommodation can be a little confusing in Japan so here's a rough guide:

Hotels

Can have Western or Japanese style rooms and these are almost always now with their own bathrooms.

Ryokans

Traditional Japanese inn. These can range from very small, 10-20 guests to enormous like a hotel. All rooms are likely to be Japanese style and many will have shared bathrooms. They will usually always have a shared bathroom anyway with a large hot tub for soaking. Breakfast and dinner are usually included in the price of the room and consist of large tradional Japanese meals comprising many courses. The buildings can be vety old and well preserved, so beautiful from the outside, or added to in the boom of the 1970's with incredibly ugly annexes to house extra guests. Although not very nice on the outside they can still be quite lovely on the inside, it's a very Japanese thing.

Onsen Ryokans and Hotels

Same as above but located in a hot spring area. So they will always have their own hot spring bath.

Minshuku

Small guesthouse with tradional Japanese rooms and a shared bathroom, meals often included. These places are usually all very small and its a bit like staying in someone's house.

So Japanese fishing villages/ports are working towns. The idyllic little untouched ancient village is a thing of the past. The winters are fierce, and there are tsunamis to worry about. So nearly all the fishing villages are protected by concrete walls and not so pretty breakwaters. However squint hard at Manazuru and its not all that different from Portofino, or that perfect Greek fishing port.