We've run The guesthuse (hostel) Igusa and the whole house rental Igusa in Hayashima town since 2014.
The building of the guest house IGUSA is 50 year old house with a beautiful Japanese style garden used to be a only Minshuku (Japanese traditional inn) in the town.
The whole house rental is a 200 years old folk house with thatched roof. We renovated it and used it as a guesthouse and now reopen as the whole house rental IGUSA.
We named both our properties after IGUSA. "IGUSA"(the rush grass) is used for the surface of Tatami mats called “tatami omote” (OMOTE means ‘front’ or ‘surface’). Hayashima town has been said to be a major production district of rush grass for “tatami omote” for over 400 years and becausse of the highest quality and largest production volume, “Hayashima omote” once represented “tatami omote” in Japan. But now, there are no one in this town growing IGUSA and making TATAMI, so we started regrowing IGUSA to try to let our guests know and experience the culture of Hayashima town through our activities.
