For the past three days straight I've been wearing pyjamas: the comfiest, softest linen pair, apricot-coloured with a drawstring waist and sleeves which hit the wrist just before the point at which you risk dipping them in your coffee. They are so perfect, I had forgotten I had them on until I started writing this.

Normally when someone announces they've been wearing pyjamas for an extended period, it is assumed they have fallen on difficult times. But in this case, the opposite is true: these last few days I have been ensconced in a traditional Japanese ryokan, a kind of inn at which the custom is to wear clothes provided by the establishment. These are laid out on your bed – a cloud-like mattress on a tatami floor – each evening. Even babies get an outfit: in my son's case, it is another whisper-soft linen number, albeit in a more practical hue of navy blue, with a kimono-style fastening on the side. As children are, he is aware of the overall effect, which is winning, and loves parading through the wide, quiet hallways with sleeves aflutter on an indiscernible breeze.

This is fine at a ryokan, because while the atmosphere is calming, it is also without preciousness. No one will shush you, not even if you are a baby. There are no particular "rules". But there's something about wearing pyjamas – not to mention surrendering shoes at the door – which encourages everyone to carry themselves differently.

The space itself makes no demands. It is neutral. It is not cosy, at least not in the way Westerners might expect. There isn't an abundance of throw cushions. Lounging, in general, isn't the done thing: beds are put away in cupboards during the day, leaving the room remarkably empty of furniture. Paper screens filter light so that it always seems like a sunny winter day. (Moonlight casts a particularly lovely glow on the tatami.) You can move them according to your own preference; there's something endlessly fascinating in the way the configuration of screens creates different postcards of the outside world.