With its plain concrete and tile exterior and glass double doors, Sawanoya looks like any other ordinary Japanese inn.
Indeed, the tiny 12-room guest house in Tokyo's historic "shitamachi" downtown district of Yanaka, Taito Ward, is very Japanese.
All the guest rooms are tatami-matted and the lobby-cum-dining room on the first floor is furnished with such traditional Japanese paraphernalia as masks and paper strips with words of talismanic significance.