We stayed 6 nights at Oyado Furuya for a ski trip and was very happy over all with our stay. The best thing about this Ryokan is its location -- right in the middle of the town, so every shop, restaurant ski rentals, and also the ski lifts are all within a few minutes walk from your accommodation. Akakura is not big anyway, but I feel the majority of the hotels are towards one side of the town, whereas Furuya is more centrally located.
This is a small place, I think 12-13 rooms in total so it has a more intimate feel that some of the other bigger hotels in town. We got 3 standard rooms between the 6 of us, 2 were western style rooms and 1 was Japanese style. I would recommend the Japanese style room over western style as it feels much more spacious. The western standard room's layout with the divider makes it feel rather cramped. Of course if you pay more and book the larger room types this won't be an issue. With the standard twin western style room, the heater fan is right next to one of the beds and it blows right at you while you are sleeping. So one person is going to be much hotter than the other. The beds are super comfy though and the blankets very thick so we were ok to turn the heater off for most the night.
Breakfast also comes in 2 styles -- western and Japanese, and you will have to state which you would like the day before. It's very decent hearty breakfast and we alternated between the 2 styles during our stay but found that within each style it does not change much from one day to another.
English is not a problem here as there are 3-4 Australian staff/interns who can give you all the information about the Ryokan facilities, ski passes, rentals etc. For facilities, Furuya has two onsen rooms, one for men and one for women. They do switch them so that you can experience both rooms if you go in at different time of the day. But as I personally like to use the onsen at the end of the day before going to bed, I just got to go to the same room everyday. Would prefer it if they would switch it by the day of the week instead, so that I could still go at the same time and get to use both rooms.
There is a storage and drying room on the bottom floor. I prefer bringing my skis back here rather than leaving them at the rental place as it's more central to all the lifts in town, and if you decide to go night skiing you can do it on a whim rather than having to decide beforehand. Another nice plus here is that you can send your clothes out for laundry and it's 1000 yen each time regardless of the amount, comes back within the same day if you send it out in the morning.
We all loved Akakura and Myoko Kogen which totally exceeded all expectations. We go to different ski destinations in Japan every year and this area is our favourite so far. Oyado Furuya is a solid choice with good value and we would definitely recommend it to anyone wanting to discover wonderful Myoko Kogen.
