We have digs

While I was writing away, creating content for this blog, Tomo was actually searching for a hotel for us. Japan has a style of hotel called a “business hotel.” These hotels are very functional, offer little hotel services, but do offer a (typically) clean place to stay. In my experience, the beds are hard as a rock and the sheets are like sandpaper, but if you lie very still they are OK.

When we were looking for rooms earlier, we visited some of the upper scale business hotel chains we had used in the past. We found those places were charging up to $600 per night, payment in advance, and no refund. While that is better than $2000 per night, it was above our price point.

A quick check at the moment shows the price is going up…

Luckily, a friend of ours gets access to various hotels through his company. The booking period for the Olympics was just opening up, so Tomo was able to shop around. He started looking at lower price hotels at first, and saw some that were 14 square meters with beds that were 120 cm wide. For two people. 14 square meters is 150 square feet, and 120 cm is 47 inches. For two people. That was a bit cozy for us for three weeks.

After shopping for four hours, Tomo was able to find a hotel with rooms no smaller than 20 square meters (215 square feet) and beds 160 cm (63 inches) wide. The room was available for all but two days, and those two days fell on a weekend. The price was less than $300 per night, and although advance payment was required, it is possible to cancel with a full refund. Note the usual price is $70 per person. They are charging double in this period. That’s right, they charge per person, not per room. Makes no sense and one of the things that drives me crazy about Japan.

I feel pretty fortunate that we found this. It is conveniently near the Akasaka Mitsuke subway station that has two subway lines that allows direct access (no changing trains) to Shinjuku Station, Shibuya Station, and Tokyo Station.