Saimonin

It is a very nice place to stay at Koyasan. Highly recommend!

Room, location, food and morning prayers were excellent and well organised. We respect the night curfew of 9pm with Main entrance/exit closed. However, we hope they could be flexible and open the gate earlier like 6am for early goers who wish to check out or have morning jog before morning prayers.

Magnificent stay at the Buddhist temple Saimon-In with my husband, which is very conveniently situated in the heart of beautiful Koya-San. The Monks gave a kind and courteous greeting, showed us our room and the onsen, and they were also very kind in their service - giving us meals and setting up our bedding. We are Buddhists from another country and used to serving Monks, so this was new for us. Big thank you to the Monks, we appreciated everything very much. The accomodation room was spacious, with comfortable beds, table, amenities such as hot water, tea, hangers for clothing, towels, Yucatan for sleeping, sitting cushions. The shared bathrooms and onsens were spacious and clean. When I went to the onsen, I was able to alone (this will depend on when you take your shower and bath). I have been to three ryokans/onsens in different parts of Japan before coming here. I would say the facilities are on par (or better!) than what you would see in most rural ryokans. I very much enjoyed the onsen, the temperature of both the shower and the hot bath. It was very relaxing and conducive to meditation. Food was excellent, tasty, and beautiful presentation. The vegetarian food was nourishing, I felt more full and nourished than almost all my other meals in Japan (usually non-vegetarian, meat centric heavy meals). It is clear that the Monks put the heart into the food. The cherry on top, was being able to join the morning main hall prayers with the Monks. What a wonderful spiritual experience.

Very basic rooms. Nice onsen. Food was good. One of the less expensive temple stays but still seemed overpriced for what it was.