Ikoi-no-Ie,Kyoto and Hotel Empire, Shinjuku,Tokyo

When we were in the planning and charting process for our trip to Japan , finding a nice but cheap accommodation felt like the hardest challenge. It took my  whole day on weekend to ensure that the place I decided won't be a hassle to get there with us lugging the big luggage from the train stations.

During this trip, we stayed at two different lodgings, one in Kyoto and one in Tokyo. Yes , it was a bit tedious arrangement considering both cities are separated by almost three hours trip by the Japan fastest bullet train,namely shinkansen.

In Kyoto, the cheapest yet convenient accommodation that I found and chose was this modern Japanese-style , Ikoi-No-Ie

The route from the train station to the premise was a bit tricky, that we have no option but to ask around the local(read: with a great effort of body language communication). We were ushered by a nice local fella until we reached the reception door.All our sweats and exhaustion were instantly forgotten upon greeted by the receptionists who are pretty in the kimono.

Gosh, her skin is so flawless and soft, I hate that I envy her. haha!

 

I dont know why, but my biggest fear about staying in Japan was my imagination with their small space to live in. I was right, when our room for 5 was under the roof of the premise, that we have to climb the ladder to get up in our room.

But with foldable mattress, the room was just adequate to the five of us for eating, praying and spreading our long fatigue foot across the room, and most importantly , to laugh out loud :p.

The sun rise very early, at 5 am but the day is bright like 7 am in Malaysia.

 

So we have to forget to laze around but to get up and explore Kyoto and Osaka while the day was early.

We stayed here for three nights, just err... just enough to cover Kyoto, Osaka and approaching Kobe with fastest pace that we could keep up with.

In Tokyo I selected Hotel Empire Shinjuku which is just a few minutes walk away from Shin-Okubo JR train station.

We arrived quite early at this hotel. Early as in before the allowable check-in time of 3 pm. Apparently Japanese is too rigid and in a positive way, punctual about time, even the reception guy didn't budge when we chat him up into allowing us to get the access to our room earlier. Gah~!

Thankfully the cafe is just next door, so we have had our quick,simple lunch  before we checked- in and resumed the tour to the next attractions in Tokyo.