Kukuru House

My February 2026 stay, after booking online under the name Pukou Spa Building: I don’t recommend this place at all. Online information is scarce, so here’s what I found. I’ve visited Okinawa more than ten times and stayed in lots of guesthouses, and this was the worst. The room was poorly ventilated and smelled strongly of must and renovation. The water pipes smelled terrible too, and the whole room was awful. It was poorly cleaned and maintained: the sofa and slippers were dirty, as was the air conditioner filter. The TV remote didn’t work properly. Worst of all, the entire washing machine was covered in black mold. I’ve never seen anything like it. The bed was too soft to sleep on, and the sheets and blankets had fine hairs and didn’t look clean, so I didn’t dare use them. The toilet wouldn’t flush effectively, and I had to unclog it myself. The one advantage was being fairly close to Asahibashi Monorail Station. There’s still a karaoke bar on another floor, and the smoke smell coming from it was unpleasant when passing by to take the elevator. The building has five floors, with Kukuru House guesthouses on the second, third, and fourth. Before check-in, the guesthouse gives you a Google form to fill out. After that, you get the combination lock number and instructions. You go upstairs, open the lock, and take out the key for your door. The elevator is small and its doors close very quickly, so be careful.

I was concerned because the price was low, but it turned out surprisingly well. We had a kitchen and hotpots, so we made ramen for dinner lol. There were two double beds and a single bed, plenty of sleeping space for four adults and a child. A dedicated parking lot would’ve been nice, but we used a nearby paid lot and it wasn’t too expensive. Every now and then, we could hear karaoke from the snack bar on the first floor.

Everything else was great, but karaoke from the first-floor bar got noisy on weekends, so I wouldn’t recommend booking then if you’re sensitive to sound. The rooms were very clean, supermarkets were nearby, and Asahibashi Bridge was a 10-minute walk away.

I booked a room advertised as having plenty of sunlight, but they suddenly told me I’d be given a different one. The bright room with yellow bedding in the photos was the one I’d reserved. Instead, even at 11 AM, I was put in the room shown on the right, with no sunlight at all. It was much smaller than the photos, full of bugs, and had dirty tableware. The bathroom... oh my god. I asked repeatedly and got no reply. Because I have a six-month-old baby, I tried to cancel, but they tried to charge me over 100,000 won in fees. I couldn’t cancel, so I went, trusting the host’s photos that showed sunlight coming in. There wasn’t any. The place was pitch black, and spiders and ants kept appearing. I wondered if I was being scammed because I’m a foreigner. This felt like the epitome of a scam, and almost ruined my perception of Japanese people. Airbnb took no responsibility when I reported it. I spent three nights and four days in this trashy place during a year that was supposed to be full of good fortune. At night I couldn’t sleep because of police car horns, presumably because of something happening nearby. It was so dark that we thought it was still nighttime. You absolutely need an alarm to wake up. When I tried opening the balcony door, there was a thick smell of cigarettes and trash, and the neighboring building was so close I couldn’t see anything. The elevator barely fits one person and a suitcase. I never want to come back. Looking at the reviews, it seems many foreigners have already been scammed here. I hope this irresponsible host gets punished.