Restaurant and Hotel Hanaoka

I've got to give credit when credit is due- http://paulstravelpics.blogspot.com/2008/12/takayama-restaurant-and-hotel-reviews.html. He's a great writer- check him out. He recommended this place and we stayed here for 3 nights. We just had a hostel worker at an earlier stay call and make reservations for us because he speaks no English. A little Japanese would help, but you can probably get by. The price we paid was 6300 yen/person/night (Paul had paid 6600 and said the price was different if you booked through the website, we didn't have a problem with price differences) This includes a 12 course kaiseki dinner and a 6 course mini-kaiseki breakfest. Kaiseki loosely translates as the most delicious yumminess in the world broken up into 12 little tiny courses of intricately prepared and artistically displayed food- rough translation, but you get the idea. So this is an INCREDIBLE deal! Location is prime, the rooms are legit with tatami and futons, and the owner is wonderfully gracious and patient with our bumbling Japanese. What more could you want!!! We would only recommend staying for 2 days at the most, for he cycles his meal every two days. So we ate the same dinner and breakfast on days 1 and 3 (it was equally delicious the second time around)