Hotel Room deals

A colleague was looking out for places to stay in Japan, and I was telling her of how cheap and affordable the rooms there generally are. That impression has been reinforced after I started looking for hotel accommodation for visitors to Singapore – hotel rooms here are so so expensive and aren’t very well reviewed either!

That, compounded by the wonderful steal of a room I got in Dublin, makes me sad, because it’s impossible to get anything beyond a tiny room in a Singapore hotel that’s not very well located for the prices that I’ve paid elsewhere.

Anyway, I thought to just document some good, cheap places I’ve stayed at while in Japan in case they should come in useful. I always book hotels via Jalan.net as it offers really great deals and has a good search function.

Hokkaido, Sapporo

First up, accommodation in Hokkaido. If you’re in Sapporo, Hotel Tokeidai, or Hotel Clocktower, (ホテル時計台）is my top choice because it’s so cheap. It offers basic rooms* with plenty of luggage space and an ensuite bathroom just 5-7 minutes from JR Sapporo station at about $66 per room for two.

(Note that it’s cheaper than Hotel 81 in Singapore, which has received lots of complaints regarding quality of the beds, sheets and room size – which is interesting, since I’d expect a hotel in the red light district to have better beds and sheets!)

Another good hotel in Sapporo is Weekly Hotel Sapporo, and its annex (ウィークリーさっぽろ２０００＆アネックス). It’s located about 6min from Susukino station, which is the entertainment and food district of Sapporo. The small intersection before the hotel has some cool structures:

The rooms cost about $79 per room (2 persons) a night, and the rooms also seem to have increased in size since I was last there (prices remain the same though), because according to the panoramic flash video on their website, the rooms now contain a sofa. Apart from the usual facilities and ensuite bathroom, each room also contains a microwave, sink and stove, cooking and eating utensils – including a rice cooker, as seen below!

Hokkaido, Lake Toya

I feel that no visit to Hokkaido is complete without going to Lake Toya – for that, I highly recommend Toya Sansui Hotel Kafuu (洞爺山水ホテル和風). It’s a traditional Japanese ryokan – complete with tatami mats, onsen baths and dinner and breakfast provided. And how much did it cost?

A mere $183 a night for two – such Japanese ryokans with meals provided usually charge an average of $126 each, and can go much higher depending on the quality of the food served. That doesn’t mean that we didn’t get good food here though – far from it, it came with a spread which included pork shabu shabu with sesame sauce, fish and prawn sashimi, black cod, a crab claw wrapped in egg, various tasty small dishes and a slice of the famed yubari melon.

Breakfast was a simpler affair as it always is, but was still filling – with fish, tofu, japanese omelette, grated yam and a serving of melon (in the covered bowl on the left).

Nikko

A useful comparison to the Toya Sansui Hotel above would be where we stayed in Nikko. Perhaps best known for being the place where the Tokugawa mausoleums are located, Nikko doesn’t seem to have many overnight travellers. Like most of the other hotels there, our accommodation – Seiyou Hotel Ichibankan (西洋ホテル壱番館）was a short 5 min taxi ride from the station.

From its name, it’s clear that it’s a western-style hotel – it’s literally a western-style house which has been converted into a hotel, and everything on the inside (apart from the presence of onsen-style baths) is western in style, which was a nice change. It was $123 each per night, inclusive of dinner and breakfast.

     

I unfortunately have no visual record of what exactly we had there, because it was so appetising aesthetically that it all went down pretty fast. The hotel owner was formerly a western cuisine chef, which explained why the food was so good. There was a delicacy of taste to the meals, which I realise is difficult to achieve and nearly non-existent in what you’d usually get here. As it was low-season and a weekday when we went, we were the only two people in the entire hotel, which made it even better.

Yokohama

The last recommendation is Porto Hostel Yokohama, located about 10-15min walk from Yokohama’s famous Chinatown. It actually has an English website and is quite a large hostel. The place seems slightly foreboding on the outside as it appeared to be rows and rows of rooms, but the rooms are actually rather cheery and nice, with space nearer the door for more luggage:

 a posed picture from one of the travel websites, provided by Porto Hostel Yokohama itself

Private rooms are $47 (or $70 for a twin or double room). Being a hostel, it doesn’t provide the usual amenities and the bathrooms are shared coin-operated showers, but breakfast – consisting of eggs, toast, salad, juice and coffee – is provided. It’s a comfortable stay though, and due to Yokohama’s proximity to Tokyo and consequent prices, is rather reasonable. A general tip, however, is that hotels are more value for money in Japan than hostels are!

*  *  *

*: Basic rooms in Japan all contain the following amenities, which are not necessarily available in Singapore hotels – free internet in rooms (often wireless), hairdryer, shampoo, conditioner, shower foam, hairbrush, toothbrush and toothpaste, towels, tea and coffee, slippers, shower and japanese-style bathtub, yukata/bathrobe, TV.