Stay & Play
Feel the Season at KAI Ito!
Article and photography by Steve Gillick
Hoshino Resort’s 23 KAI hot spring (onsen) properties celebrate the changing seasons, showcase local crafts, and honor guests with attention to detail, stellar customer service, and locally sourced, beautifully presented, delicious food.
Ito is a hot spring town on the eastern coast of the Izu Peninsula in Shizuoka Prefecture. It’s about a 90-minute train ride from Tokyo, during which passengers can enjoy a build-up to the scenery in store: the mountains and the ocean.
From Ito Station, turn right toward the giant Tengu Mask over the souvenir shop, and then walk 10 minutes further to KAI Ito. Beside the outside entrance, staff are ready to greet guests and escort them to the lobby for a relaxed check-in experience. Our room had 2 beds with views of the Garden (where we could see colorful Koi fish swimming in the pond below), the outdoor swimming pool, and the mountains beyond. The room was designed for comfort. A deep bathtub made of ancient cypress could be filled with hot spring water to luxuriate in privacy. The large tatami living room highlighted local art on the walls and Shoji (sliding doors) that mirrored ‘Momiji’, or colored Japanese maple leaves of the autumn season.
A recurrent nature theme in the hotel is the Camellia Japonica Flower, the official flower of Ito City. One of the hands-on activities for hotel guests is making oil from the Camelia seeds and then collecting the precious droplets in a small bottle as a souvenir. Oil for cosmetic or edible purposes can be purchased in the craft/gift shop.
The KAI Ito onsen produces warm feelings of contentment, literally! The hot water pools overlook tranquil garden-rock scenery in the separate men’s and women’s areas.
After an indulgent bath, we fulfilled the invitation to ‘Enjoy the taste of the mountains and the ocean’ with an exceptional nine-course meal. Umami highlights included peanut tofu with mustard miso, scallops and picked flying fish roe, grated yam wheat with Belvedere fruit, dried fig and green vegetables with sesame miso, Japanese lobster sashimi, and grilled abalone. Then the Sankai Nabe (Mountain and Ocean Hot Pot) arrived: Half a savory vegetable broth with Japanese Beef and the other half a sumptuous red broth of vegetables, shrimp, and Red Snapper.
The taste experience continued the following day with breakfast, where the featured dish was Namerou: Aji (Horse Mackerel) mixed with ginger, miso, and green onion on a bed of rice, with local seaweed, egg, and wasabi rice crackers. When you pour soup stock over the rice, the dish is called “Ochazuke” (‘submerged in tea’), and it’s so good!
Mr. Takahiro Kubo, General Manager, suggested that “Canadian and American visitors should come to Izu and feel the seasons”. KAI Ito proved it was the perfect place to do this with wonder, relaxation, comfort, and culinary contentment.
