#japantips

I used to think the same… until I wandered off the main path.

🍤 Hidden tempura shops only locals queue for 🛶 A breezy river cruise with Tokyo Skytree views 🌆 Secret photo spots that turn magical at sunset

My second trip changed everything. Less crowd, more soul. So I put together a full guide — not the copy-paste touristy stuff, but real tips that saved me time, money, and major FOMO.

Another thing I’d really recommend is that you don’t go ahead and simply book an apartment “somewhere in the center of the city” but instead explore your subway/train options first. I would suggest first taking a look at where your university/school/company or most of the desired tourist destinations are, and which subway/train stations are in its vicinity.

Here is why. When we were booking a place with Sakura House, there was a really neat apartment near the center of Tokyo that cost the same as the room in the share house that we later took. Obviously, our first thought was to take the apartment, but since it did not have a direct subway/train connection to most of the places that we wanted to visit, we did a bit of transportation fee calculating using this website:

https://world.jorudan.co.jp/mln/en/?sub_lang=nosub

Here is what we discovered. If we stayed at the share house next to Yamanote Line (direct connection) we would only have to pay about 200 yen in one direction for most of the places that we wanted to visit. If we stayed at the apartment (forgot the location, but we’d have to transfer once or twice every day), we would have to pay between 600 and 800 yen in one direction for most of the destinations - that’s three to four times more!

When Janez and I were planning our trip to Japan, one of our biggest worries was the accommodation. We have heard that the hotels were super expensive, so that was out of question, but the hostels didn’t seem like a good idea either...I mean, we were about to LIVE there for a month - there was no way we were going to leave our luggage (and money) in a room with other people, and we did need some storage space.

Ultimately, we decided to rent a room with Sakura House, which turned out to be a really good decision. There are many companies in Japan that rent apartments, rooms and dorms to foreigners, and the prices are actually very reasonable, especially if you are traveling with someone who you are willing to share the room with. Say, the two of us had to pay 700 euros for a one-month-stay, which was only 350 euros per person for a one month stay in the very center of Tokyo. Trust me, that’s an incredible deal.

Here, you may want to take a look at some of these pages:

http://www.sakura-house.com/en

https://www.oakhouse.jp/eng/

http://www.borderless-house.com/jp/

https://www.realestate.co.jp/en/rent With this one, you may want to be a bit careful when specifying the search terms...I found that “Residence Tokyo” apartments suit my needs the best, for example, with the whole no guarantor and such.