Great-grandson of former owner reopens hotel in Shimane.

Tucked away on the north shore near the western tip of Japan’s main island of Honshu, Shimane Prefecture is a place that attracts travelers craving an escape from the hustle and bustle of the country’s big cities. If you’re planning a trip to Shimane, odds are you’re looking for something more timeless than trendy, hoping to make memories that have a certain classic quality to them.

If so, the hotel Yasuya, in the town of Yasugi, should be right up your alley. The building was originally constructed roughly 150 years ago, and operated as an elegant inn and restaurant for some 40 years stretching from the Meiji (1868-1912) to Showa (1926-1989) periods. Yasuya is now in the hands of Takeyuki Suzuki, whose great-grandfather was the second-generation owner of the inn. With the building having fallen into disuse, Suzuki could have elected to tear it down, but his fond memories of spending summers there as a child instead convinced him to renovate and reopen Yasuya, which began receiving guests again this past spring.

However, Suzuki isn’t just a hotelier. His primary professional background is in photography, and he’s also involved in the management of Frame, a local studio and creative photography company. Suzuki’s hope for Yasuya is for it to be a place where guests can have cultural travel experiences, and so the inn now has an attached Analog Photography Studio.

Among the equipment guests can have their pictures taken with are a Toyo-View model that dates from the Taisho period (1912-1926). It can’t equal the megapixel count of a digital camera, but that’s because it doesn’t use any pixels at all, and with taking photos with actual film having become an increasingly rare experience, there’s a now-unique quality to the results, producing a feeling of warm nostalgia even if the equipment is from an era before you were born.

If you really want digital data too, Yasuya can provide that as well, as part of a hybrid plan.

And on the other end of the spectrum, if you want to get really into the analog aspects, Yasuya’s Analog Photography Studio offers darkroom developing lessons that even first-timers can enjoy.

Other options include silver halide portraits, in which silver chemicals are used in the developing process to print the image, producing a sharp image with bold colors that are-extra resistant to fading. If you wish, the printing can be done onto locally produced washi, a kind of traditional thick rice paper.

And if the particular degree of retro that’s appealing to you is of the ‘80s/’90s vintage, Yasuya’s Analog Photo Studio does Polaroid portraits too.

As you might expect Yasuya takes a traditional approach to its meals as well, which are cooked at an open irori hearth that encourages conversation and communication among diners.

Photo prices start at 5,000 yen (US$34) for self-taken photos with the Taisho-era camera and go up to 30,000 yen for a framed silver halide portrait, and Yasuya says that photo services are available to non-guests as well, so even if you’re not spending the night in Yasugi (maybe because you’re hurrying on to catch the Pokémon Sandshrew Train in neighboring Tottori Prefecture), you might still want to contact Yasuya through their online form here.

Hotel information
Yasuya
Address: Shimane-ken, Yasugi-shi, Hirosemachi, Hirose 828
島根県安来市広瀬町広瀬828
Website

Source: PR Times, Yasuya
Images: PR Times
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