Takahan Ryokan some of the author's personal effects. Takahan Ryokan Takahan Ryokan is an historic ryokan (Japanese inn) located in Yuzawa, Niigata Prefecture, Japan. The inn is over 800 years old. The inn has an onsen (bath) called "Tamago no Yu" (English: egg-water) that is supplied by natural hot springs with a slight amount of sulfur. The inn has approximately 20,000 annual visitors, many of whom visit to soak in Tamago no Yu. The setting for the book "Snow Country" authored by Yasunari Kawabata is based upon Takahan Ryokan's location. The inn has preserved the room that Kawabata stayed and wrote in
Tales of a Wayside Inn title "Tales of a Wayside Inn". He wrote in his journal that day: "Write a little on the Wayside Inn. A beginning only." Longfellow visited the real-life Wayside Inn in 1862 with his friend and publisher James Thomas Fields. At the time, the inn was called the Red Horse Tavern and had closed after the owner, Lyman Howe, died in 1861. It would not reopen as an inn until 1897. Longfellow referred to it as "a rambling, tumble-down building". He toured the building with Abigail Eaton, a relative of the Howe family, who told Longfellow the history of the building