Renting rooms to foreigners can be a sensitive subject for many minshuku owners in Japan. It's not that the owners can't speak English, nor that they don't like foreigners. Through the years, I've gotten to know some minshuku owners and have learned that foreigners can indeed be a bit mendokusai (troublesome) mainly because when in Japan, we do not do like the Japanese.
The truth is that the Japanese are fascinated with foreigners and would love to have them stay at their minshuku, if only foreigners wouldn't saunter.
We foreigners are indeed saunterers. We saunter down to breakfast in our own time, we saunter into the 6 p.m. meal at 6:15. We are anything but punctual.