With just five years under it’s belt, Hotel the Mitsui has already stood the test of time. Housed in the former estate of one of Japan’s most influential families, interior architect, Andre Fu, guides you through the unique details that help guests celebrate Kyoto’s history with a fresh pair of eyes.
In this “If These Walls Could Talk” episode of Unpacked, Aislyn Greene takes you on a tour of the stories—and secrets— that a hotel can reveal about the places we visit.
Transcript
Aislyn Greene, host [on trip]: So he used the bamboo stick as a step, and now he’s standing at the top of the tree, pruning. Oh my gosh. Wow. The guy’s just up there, like, wafting back and forth in the breeze.
Aislyn [voiceover]: I’m watching a team of men prune a tree. But this isn’t any team, and it’s not just any tree. I’m in Kyoto, Japan, watching gardeners hand-prune pine trees while standing atop bamboo poles suspended high in the branches. And I’m watching from the comfort of a hotel room I never want to leave.
Andre Fu: The whole concept for Hotel the Mitsui is rooted in the idea of a journey.
I’m Aislyn Greene, and this is Unpacked by Afar. And in this episode, we’re journeying into Hotel the Mitsui, which has been transformed into one of Kyoto’s most luxurious, and most historic, hotels.
And it all starts with a gate.
Andre: I felt that there, there is an opportunity to create that sense of journey as, as you go through the gate. And I really want to celebrate that as a point of arrival, that feeling that you’re going into a place that has stood the test of time, and there is a connection between the past and the present.
Aislyn: That’s interior architect Andre Fu, whose voice you heard at the top of the episode. In the hotel world, and really in the travel world, he’s a bit of a design celebrity. So I called Andre after my visit to talk about the history of the Mitsui and his vision for the guest rooms and the entire entry experience, including that gate, which we’ll get to after a little lowdown on one of Japan’s biggest dynasties.
Megumi: Our hotel stands on the grounds of the former residence, the Kyoto home of the Mitsui family, which is one of the biggest families in Japan. And the Mitsui family maintained this estate for over 250 years.
Aislyn: That’s my new friend Megumi, one of Mitsui’s ambassadors. We’re standing in the lobby, and she’s wearing a beautiful kimono, which is also a nod to the Mitsui family and to Kyoto’s center as a textile and kimono hub.
Aislyn: Does your kimono, does it have a story?
Megumi: Actually, the Mitsui family started their business by selling kimonos at first, and they spread—[grew] into a really big, rich family.
Aislyn: It sounds like they had a lot of power.
Megumi: Yes!
Aislyn: At the height of their power between the First and Second World Wars, the Mitsui family had more than 250 businesses. But after World War II, occupation forces split the group and dissolved the holding company.
Today, however the Mitsui has regrouped and is made up of dozens of multinational companies with ties to banking, trading, coal production, and more. And while the family has no current connections to the hotel, the Mitsui has preserved some of the family’s most interesting history.
Megumi: We’ll still keep using some of the remains from the Mitsui family’s residence. And our biggest remains is our gate. The gate has a name; the name is called Kajiimiya. It was made in 1703. It means around, like, 300 years ago.
Aislyn: Wow. And it’s still standing? Amazing.
Megumi: Still standing. Yes.
Aislyn: Hotel the Mitsui is located in central Kyoto, just near the Nijo Castle, which is a huge draw, a UNESCO World Heritage site. But the hotel feels surprisingly peaceful and hidden away from the bustle of the city. And the sense of peacefulness descends as you enter the Kajiimiya Gate. It has this gently sloped clay tile roof. It kind of looks like a historic treasure you’d see outside of a Japanese shrine, but it honestly does not look any one of its 300 years. And that’s because before the hotel opened in 2020, the gate was painstakingly restored. Artisans in the Fukui Prefecture did the work, and they were able to preserve 80 percent of the original gate.
They also preserved a very small but very powerful architectural detail.
Megumi: And this wood tag is called Muna Huda. We found it inside our gate when we [were] reconstructing it.
Aislyn: Megumi and I are looking at a small piece of wood with a Buddhist symbol on it, and she tells me that this piece of wood, Muna Huda, was added to the gate as a kind of lucky charm all the way back in 1703, and there’s a reason for it.
Megumi: And when you see the corner, you can notice that it’s cut off. In Japan, we think that if we make [something] 100 percent perfectly, then next step is breaking up. So to make the gap—
Aislyn: OK, so the flaw is intentional, essentially.
Megumi: —is to wish that the gate and also the family, which owns the gate, can last forever. They trim the corner to make it, uh, imperfect.
Aislyn: So it’s kind of a blessing, a protection.
Megumi: Yes.
Aislyn: When they restored the gate, the hotel added a new Muna Huda.
Megumi: So there’s still a lucky charm in it.
Aislyn [on tour]: Three hundred more years.
Aislyn: Megumi and I pass through the gate and into the check-in area, an intimate, low-ceilinged place with a gorgeous stone floor and a large, orange [structure] that looks like origami waves set in a bed of sand.
Megumi: This is called The Wind, and this art is made by the guy called Yukiya Izumita. He’s from Iwate Prefecture, and it looks like it was made by wood, but actually these are all ceramics.
Aislyn: The ceramic sculpture is made from a red clay drawn from Yukiya’s birthplace in the Iwate Prefecture. You have to walk around the piece to get to the hotel spaces beyond it, and it’s so striking, I ask Andre what it represents.
Andre: I think what’s interesting about this ceramic piece is it’s set in finely raked sand, and it evokes antiquity and, and modernity. You know, it’s, it’s fragile and, but it has strength. It is vulnerable, but it’s resilient. And, and I guess, that sort of communicates that mystical feeling that I get when I am physically in Kyoto.
Aislyn: There is something kind of mystical about passing through the check-in area and into the large lobby beyond, which opens up on this sprawling, organic but sculpted garden. It’s all part of Andre’s carefully crafted “arrival journey.”
Andre: As you enter into the hotel, we have deliberately compressed the ceiling and as you progress along from, from that check-in area into the main lobby, where the ceiling height doubles up, and in the ceiling, we’ve created this installation, uh, that’s reminiscent of a flowing kimono fabric.
Aislyn: Remember that the Mitsui family’s original business was kimonos.
Andre: So we wanted to create this installation, kind of replicating the silhouette of this piece of kimono that starts to lift up and unveil this beautiful garden that we have created within the courtyard of the hotel.
Aislyn: On this warm October day, the floor-to-ceiling windows are open, so there is no barrier between inside and out. This was also quite intentional.
Megumi: This design came from the one thing, uh, which we used from 1,000 years ago. Called teioku ichinyo.
Aislyn [on tour]: Oh, cool. What does that mean?
Megumi: He tried to harmonize inside and outside. So he made the—that big window can be opened. And also he didn’t use a lot of light, so that a lot of sunlight can come in through from the big gate windows.
Aislyn [on tour]: And now we’re out looking at these gorgeous, very calm pools with, like, little pockets of light. We’re seeing more maple trees. I’m sure they all have a story.
Megumi: Oh yeah.
Aislyn: All 160 rooms wrap around this internal courtyard, which does indeed have a story. There are the maples, which are just starting to turn to fall colors. Green-needled cypress trees. And there’s a single cherry tree.
Megumi: And also round about here, there’s the biggest symbol tree of this garden. This is a weeping cherry blossom. Springtime, it blooms perfectly, and it a little bit, it, it blooms around, like, the middle of, uh, April.
Aislyn: And is this the only cherry tree in the garden?
Megumi: Yes. Yes.
Aislyn: So that must be very striking. Then you have all the green and then just, like, pop of pink—that’s so cool.
Aislyn: The garden has two themes.
Megumi: This part is a modern style. The other side is a traditional style, so there’s a lot of natural curves there. But there’s a lot of, so many straight lines in here.
Aislyn: I mean, you can just see, too, kind of where the greenery ends, and then we’re in more structured lines. And you can see all the lines and the lights, uh, in the lights across the way. That’s really cool.
Andre later tells me he worked very closely with Shunsaku Miyagi, the landscape designer.
Andre: He’s a master of Japanese landscape, and he has a strong belief in more, like, you know, the purity, the wabi sabi of, of Japanese, landscaping, and especially in the context of Kyoto.
Aislyn: And Andre wanted the entire hotel to incorporate some aspect of a garden view.
Andre: My goal is when you look from different perspective, even though it’s the same courtyard garden, it actually evokes different scenography.
Aislyn: To do that, he also encouraged Shunsaku to incorporate a way to move across the garden.
Andre: And one of the main things that I did is I persuaded him to create this footpath that is on the water, and it connects, uh, a small door from our little tea room, and there’s this path that you almost feel as if you’re walking on the water, and it connects to the all-day dining restaurant at the other end of the courtyard. So, it’s about creating these interesting vignettes, uh, moments within the space. And I guess that level of, of visual connectivity creates more layers in the experience. And I guess that’s what’s been interesting for the guests, because they start to discover different places within the hotel that constantly surprise them.
Aislyn: The next day, my partner Jeannie and I are surprised by our very first tea ceremony, with none other than Megumi.
Megumi: Have you ever tried a tea ceremony before?
Aislyn: No. First time. Thank you.
Megumi: So usually at the tea ceremony, we serve you sweet first, and you eat sweet, then drink matcha.
Aislyn: We’re sitting in the tea ceremony alcove just off the lobby. Megumi explains that the matcha can be quite bitter, so that’s why you get a sweet with it.
Megumi: This is red bean paste and covered with, uh, soft, uh, sweet potato paste.
Aislyn: First, we have to pick a tea bowl. I go with a black bowl with swoops of gold paint. Jeannie picks a blue and green ceramic one. And while the tea ceremony is usually performed in silence, Megumi says she’s willing to talk us through it this time because there’s a lot of cool history. Like, for example, most people picture tea ceremonies being led by kimono-wearing women like Megiumi. But . . .
Megumi: It used to be a man’s culture. It came to Japan as medicine at first, and it was drunk by monks because in matcha, there’s this, a caffeine. And so let them keep waking up so they can pray for a long time.
Aislyn: From there it was adopted by samurai soldiers.
Megumi: It was a place for them to show their real tools, which—they have to show their power to each other. And also, like, there is like a game to get, drink the matcha, and [guess] which part of the matcha are [from], to compete their knowledge.
Aislyn: And then it evolved into what it has become today.
Megumi: And then, like, one guy started to say that like, “We need to show more respect and like, don’t, don’t show off to others. Be humble.” And it slightly changed to be more tea ceremony for like meditations [and] for to be healthy, you know?
Also, it was used as a place for them to have like a secret conversation with each other to deal with like really important decisions.
Aislyn: Megumi starts the ritual, which still retains some of its samurai roots.
Megumi: So before we start making matcha, we need to purify all the tools ’cause there are danger that some, some would poison others, some samurai. So we need to show that there’s no dangers; it’s all safe, and it’s all clean before we start making it.
Aislyn: As she wipes down the tools with a special cloth called fukusa, she explains that there are different schools for learning tea ceremonies.
Megumi: And the color is different by the school, which we learn from. And how to make it. And also the, the shape of this whisk is a little bit different too. Our whisk is straight one, so it tastes more mild, and ours [has] less bubbles, so [you can] uh, taste the more straight matcha.
Aislyn: We sit quietly while Megumi prepares our tea, watching her precise, choreographed movements as she ladles in water and briskly whisks the tea. Then she explains how to hold the bowl.
Megumi: This is quite hot here, and this part won’t get hot. So please hold the bottom part by your left hand and support by your right hand like this and sip it. When you pick up, please twist two times a little bit clockwise, a little bit. And then drink it, please. And after you finished drinking everything, twist [the bowl] back and enjoy the tea bowl at last.
Aislyn: OK, here we go. So I pulled it in my left hand like this.
Megumi: Yes, like that.
Aislyn: And then I twist.
Megumi: Twist it on a little bit.
Aislyn: Like that?
Megumi: Yes. Perfect.
Aislyn: Thank you very much. It smells amazing. Oh, wow. It’s not bitter at all. That’s so good.
Aislyn: After our tea, we return to our room.
Elevator voice: Third floor, doors are opening.
Aislyn: Even the experience of moving from the elevator to our room feels special, an extension of the visual journey Andre has created.
Andre: Every perspective as you get out of the lift, what you see and then you turn . . . even the, the carpet in the guest room corridor—it’s a carpet, obviously, but there’s a subtle, meandering pattern that, that starts to almost look like it’s dancing. I mean, some people read it as ripples. Some people read it as a Zen garden.
Aislyn: And right outside the door to every room is a small shoji lantern on a pedestal.
Andre: And I think that, uh, does give every room a feeling of entering into a small, uh, Japanese house or the entrance of a tea room, for example. So again, it’s, it’s bringing a feeling of, of intimacy and, and evoking local culture.
Aislyn: Our room is on the third floor and faces the gardens, where the gardeners are out tending to the trees. And that’s the word that comes to mind as I look around. The room feels so thoughtfully designed, like someone tended to every need that could arise. For example, when you walk in, there’s a little bench with a shoehorn built into it where you can sit down and quickly and comfortably remove your shoes, then put them onto the bench below.
It feels.. . . . fine-tuned. And this all plays into the feeling Andre wanted to evoke.
Andre: That sense of serenity that we want to infuse into the property. And, on that note, there is a lot of bespoke furniture pieces. We’ve put in a lot of shoji lanterns just to create that feeling of serenity. And again, it’s all very simply done, but in terms of detailing, there was a lot of labor in terms of refining and defining how elements interlock.
Aislyn: Everywhere you look, there’s another thoughtful touch. Andre worked with dozens of local artisans to outfit the rooms, from the soaking tub with a bench where you can sit down and bathe to the minibar stocked with handmade ceramic mugs. And then there are the aesthetic layers, which again gently nod to history.
Andre: For the wall panels above the beds, they are specially woven textiles by a kimono designer called Jotaro Saito. So, he actually comes from a family of Kyoto kimono makers. He has a very innovative approach to the designs of kimonos.
Aislyn: Andre says that usually kimonos are a certain width because of how they need to wrap around the body.
Andre: In our case, because we wanted the pattern to be continuous, it’s almost like a brush of paint spans the width of the bed, basically.
Aislyn: This might sound relatively simple, but in Japan, where crafts like kimono-making have been protected and perfected for centuries, pushing these boundaries had to be a conversation with each artisan.
Andre: For him, it was challenging because it’s also about how different panels of fabric connect together and how it conveys the feeling of movement within that brush. What could be for me or someone like yourself, from a foreigner’s perspective, makes perfect sense. Maybe for someone that is from the city or from that specific practice of, of, of kimono, you know, fabrication, [it] is totally unusual or not authentic.
Aislyn: But at the end of the day, it was Andre’s fresh perspective on some of this history and tradition that the hotel wanted.
Andre: I think there is a strong purpose to the narrative of the hotel, which is about celebrating Japanese beauty. And, to be honest, [for] me as a non-Japanese person to be entrusted with this very important commission, it was a little bit nerve-racking at the beginning. But equally what I find interesting is that they have allowed me this window of immersing myself in trying to define a way to tell that Kyoto story that is familiar yet perhaps a little bit unfamiliar.
Aislyn: There are so many other experiences to explore at the hotel. There’s Toki, the restaurant helmed by Tetsuya Asano, where the Paris-trained chef highlights Kyoto’s legendary water in his dashi stock, among many other delights. There’s the Shiki-No-Ma, or private tea room, that opens up onto the garden, where I took a breathwork class. There’s a spa, where guests can bathe in a thermal spring—or their own private onsen—or try a treatment inspired by traditional Anma massage. And the backdrop of the city itself, which is a character in its own right. And as Jeannie and I exit through the gate on our way to the next part of our journey, I remember something that Megumi had shared with me.
Aislyn [on tour]: She said the idea is that when you walk in, you feel the history, but when you leave, you feel refreshed. Isn’t that cool?
Aislyn: All these months later, and I still feel refreshed when I think about our couple of days at Hotel the Mitsui. If you too want to experience some Kyoto refreshments, we’ve included a link to the hotel’s website and social handles in the show notes.
And a very special thank you to Megumi and to Miho, who helped arrange everything you just heard. This was our last episode of Unpacked until fall 2025, but keep an eye out for many episodes and other bonus content [that] will be rolling out while we work on the second half of our 2025 season. We’ll see you then.
Aislyn: Ready for more Unpacking? Visit afar.com and be sure to follow us on Instagram and Tiktok. We’re @afarmedia. If you enjoy today’s exploration, I hope you’ll come back for more great stories. Subscribing always makes that easy, and be sure to rate and review the show on your favorite podcast platforms. It helps other travelers find it.
And if you want to ask a question or suggest a topic for coverage, you can leave us a voicemail at the link in the show notes, or email us at unpacked@afar.com
This has been Unpacked, a production of Afar Media. The podcast is produced by Aislyn Greene and Nikki Galteland. Music composition by Chris Colin.
And remember, the travel world is complicated. We’re here to help you unpack it.
