Gassho guest house during winter

We would like to stay a night in one of the Gassho-zukuri guesthouses in early Februrary in Shirakawa-go. As the winter can be quite harsh, we would like to know if the heating provided the guesthouse is sufficient to keep us warm? We are from Singapore and the ideal room temperature would be 20 to 25 degree celsius.

One thing became clear on our recent visit to Japan - at S-go they do not want non-japanese guests! Even got a kind Japanese speaking forum member to ask for us,same thing resulted. Visit S-go on the way through but Gujo Hachiman is so very much nicer and more interesting. We drove a rental car from Takayama which was much cheaper and sooo much nicer than public transport.

One thing became clear on our recent visit to Japan - at S-go they do not want non-japanese guests! Even got a kind Japanese speaking forum member to ask for us,same thing resulted.

I find that quite interesting because I had the exact opposite experience. I visited Shirakawa-go and Gokayama last spring and found the people to be warm and welcoming. In fact, staying overnight at the Gashho Zukuri farmhouse has been a highlight of my trips around Japan.

Don't worry about the cold. we stayed there in Jan last year and all the guest houses were very cosy. Shirakawago is very beautiful in winter. You must go there.

Hey, Connie Chiwa! Was that me that asked for you? because I made a call but it was to a minshuku near Gujo-Hachiman - and they didn't want you (actually they only wanted you if I came along, which I didn't think was part of the deal).
Anyway I have stayed in Shirakawa-go but found it difficult to find a place in winter (we just arrived with no reservation) - the tourist info office woman kept telling the minshuku, 'I have two gaijin here looking for a room' which makes me crazy...why not just say 'two people' but in any case we found a place, Shimizu, in which the woman was comfortable with us, and the heat was provided by a kerosene heater in the room, which as a safety measure, turned itself off every few hours. If you end up in a room with such a heater, be sure to get a thorough session on how to turn it on!!! The room was warm as long as we kept the heater going.
I can't answer for other places.

I imagine if you go there you may be able to find a nice place to stay and of course the locals are very polite. But to arrange booking by phone or internet seems to be a problem from our experience - give it a try ,things may have changed, and let us know the outcome please.

Thank you guys for your prompt response. This is my first time posting a query in this forum and didn't expect to receive a response so fast. We inteneded to visit Hakone or Fuji Five Lakes but decided to visit to Takayama and S-go instead after reading so many good reviews about Japan Shangri-la. We wanted to S-go instead of Gokayama as we would like to see the light up of the Gassho houses duirng one of the weekends in January.

We tried to reserve a guesthouse via japanguesthouses.com but was fully booked. Do you guys suggest that we stay 2 nights in Takayama instead and travel to S-go to watch the lightings and return back to Takayama in the evening? I saw the bus schedule and we should be able to catch a bus at 630 p.m. on Sunday (although we would have to reserve the bus) and that would leave us about an hour to admire the lightings. The other option is to stay a night in Ogimachi. If we can't reserve a Gassho guesthouse, we would stay at the S-go Onsen guesthouse instead. Which is a better option? Driving is not an option as we thought it would not be quite safe to drive during the harsh winter in S-go.

The other quesiton is about the type of JR pass we should buy. We are going to visit Chubu region for 11 days.

Itinerary as below:
Day 1 to 4: 3 nights in Nozawa Onsen for skiing;
Day 4 to Day 6: 1 night in Takayama and 1 night in S-go (or 2 nights in Takayama) during weekends to see the lightings
Day 6 to Day 8: 2 nights in Kyoto
Day 8 to Day 11: 3 nights Tokyo

The 7-day JR pass should serve us well except that it would not cover the trip from Kyoto back to Tokyo on Day 8. Should I buy a 7-day JR pass and separately buy a JR ticket from Kyoto to Tokyo or should I buy a JR east pass (for Nozawa Onsen) and JR 7-day pass starting on Day 2?

Thank you in advance.

Takayama is really nice. Though we finally took a rental car ,we had arranged to use the busses and the kind people at the Tourist office there even booked us tickets from the bus co. all done on email. I think you would get on the bus on the day anyway or with a day's notice. You can break the trip for an hour or so and take the next bus onwards.