A Good Cheap Place to Stay in Kyoto, Japan
The hotel itself is simple but clean and safe, and the prices are fantastic. We paid $65 per night for two people for a four-day stay scheduled well in advance, and later stayed two more nights on short notice at $75 per night. Rooms are western style, small but pleasant and accommodate one to three people. They include a small refrigerator and electric teakettle.
We found the twin beds in our rooms hard until we got used to them, but the bedding was clean, fresh and warm, and the bathrooms were fantastic. There are sit-down toilets, a luxury not to be taken for granted in Japan, as well as one-use razors, toothbrushes and plenty of towels. The bathtub is wonderful, a one person deep sento-style tub where you can sit shoulder deep in unlimited amounts of hot water to soak away jet lag or sore legs and feet!
The rooms have windows that actually open with nice views of the park or surrounding houses and temples. There’s a kitchen where you can heat up food and a laundry room with washers and dryers. This is a big plus – dryers are rare in Japan. The PalaceSide seems to be a favorite with international travelers – we met Italian, Dutch and Australian travelers in the kitchen.
Other on-site amenities include evening language lessons, a restaurant, a Thai style massage service and internet access in the lobby. There are also vending machines dispensing beer, cans of hot coffee, bottles of cold green tea as strong as espresso, sports drinks like Pokari Sweat and Aquarius, as well as cigarettes and laundry soap in little round tablets. I never saw one that sold candy bars, but the drink vendies are thick along every street, outside private houses as well as businesses. Since it’s an easy walk from the PalaceSide to the Marutamachi subway station you can connect with transportation to numerous temples, palaces and other attractions in the Kyoto area and beyond.
Best of all, right across the street from the PalaceSide are the grounds of the Old Imperial Palace. It’s not easy to get into the Palace itself- you have to go through some red tape and make a reservation in advance. Whether or not you get into the Palace, the grounds are wonderful, like Central or Golden Gate Park, full of beautiful walks and garden areas as well as a Shinto temple.
The PalaceSide will lend you a bike for a short ride, or rent you one for the day, and you can spend as much time as you like exploring the park. Just be careful going back and forth across the street. There are no bike lanes, and traffic is heavy and on the wrong side for Americans. Up on the sidewalk pedestrians and bike riders charge along mercilessly- even Lance Armstrong might find it a challenge. Once you get into the park, it’s easy to ride wherever you like. There are no cars, just Japanese families and friends relaxing, walking babies or dogs or hanging out on the benches smoking and talking. After a hard day of temple trotting, it’s a nice change of pace.
Here’s another important tip. Believe it or not, the Japanese use cash money instead of debit or credit cards! We paid for our rooms at in cash – merchants and services rarely accept plastic! The PalaceSide is located fairly close to the main Post Office, where there are international ATMs and you can withdraw money from your home account in the form of yen. International ATMs are rare, so whenever you find one take out as much as you can. Crime is low, and you aren’t likely to be mugged for your money.
There are lots of nearby restaurants, but you may also want to check out the convenience stores. They have names like Circle K, Lawtons and 7-11, but when it comes to food these stores are much nicer than their stateside counterparts. They offer excellent ready made sushi, nifty little triangular seaweed wrapped rice cakes with salmon and pork in the middle and various mysterious but tasty sweet treats as well as ibuprophen, soap and cigarettes. Since everyone smokes everywhere in Japan it’s rare to find a restaurant that isn’t full of smoke, so when we tired of the smoke we ate in our room.
We got our reservations there through a family member who lives in Kyoto, but it’s easy to make reservations on the Internet. The hotel has its own Japanese/English website with maps, rates, info and virtual tours.
