Ochanomizu Hotel Juraku

The subway station and nearby restaurants were convenient, but I wouldn’t choose this as a tourist. I spent five nights here and learned the hard way that it’s marketed as a business hotel. My single room was dim, with a small window and barely enough space to unpack. The kettle didn’t work, so I couldn’t make tea or coffee. In Japan’s hot, humid summer, the AC shutting itself off every two or three hours was a serious problem. I woke up repeatedly to turn it back on. When I raised it, the staff barely spoke English and seemed not to understand me, so eventually I gave up. I’d paid already, and that was that. The room seemed geared toward people who only need a bed and bathroom for the night.

We asked to change the smoking rooms that had been given to me and my team to non-smoking rooms, but the hotel was full and the staff couldn’t speak English. We understood when our refund request was denied, but no one seemed interested in helping. The staff members in suits, who might have included a manager, talked among themselves without paying attention to us. It made for a terrible first impression.

I arrived without booking and got a room with almost no fuss. It’s a nice little place to crash, though the room is on the small side. They’ve packed what you’d need into that tiny space.

The neighborhood’s my favorite part, busy during the day but quiet at night, with loads of comfortable, inexpensive food options. This is a great Japanese-style hotel. The lobby looks a little dated, while the rooms seem to have been renovated recently. It’s just around the corner from my usual Hotel MyStays, and I like both hotels.