Hi,

Can anyone recommend a place to stay in Tokyo - cheap but suitable for a woman with a 15 yo daughter?

I know Japan is a safe place to go to in general but the prices do frighten me - remember them from like 14 years ago and I do not think they have gone down
I have been to Japan twice before but was staying with friends so did not worry about the cost of hotels or food etc (yeah, I know - lucky me).

This time I would like to go just with my daughter and stay in a hotel so.......

Any advice?

Thanks a lot.

Anna

How much you pay depends on where you stay, but I think that you'd be hard pressed to spend less than £50 -£60 per room per night. It also depends on what area you want to stay in.

There's nowhere that's not safe, imho.

The larger hotels are probably slightly more expensive, but the difficulty with the smaller placer places is that they may not be too keen on having you as a guest, as they feel that no-one on the staff will have the requisite level of English to be able to serve you properly.

My only recommendation would be to target an area and try to look at prices online through a consolidator.

All depends on what you want to do whilst there - post again and although I don't live there anymore, I might be able to make suggestions.

In general, whilst the high priced places for eating out are still there compared to 10 -15 years ago, it will probably be easier to find somewhere more reasonably priced to eat.

Parkie

I can give you some horror stories too! Like the time I took a work colleague to a restaurant recommended by my boss, and she chose the £80 per head set menu! In order to avoid embarrasment , I had to do the same, and fortunately could claim it on expenses.

As a very rough rule of thumb, I would plan for prices to be about double those in the UK, although as Japan has a service culture, its easy to pay a lot more!

Parkie

ive heard and ive seen a clip of it on tv, but am having trouble finding out if it really exists, the clip i saw showed (briefly) a hello kitty world theme park in japan where you could get married and do all sorts of things, and of course see people dressed up as life size kitty, does anyone know where it is or if it still exists? any info would be great, i cant find anything on the net - which is worrying, thanks

Is this the the place you ae looking for http://www.sanrio.co.jp/english/spl/spl.html

An article withe pictures here
http://int.kateigaho.com/mar04/hello-kitty-puroland.html

Hi,has anyone here got any ideas as to what the weather will be like in Japan in September/October as we have a stopover on our way to Australia? I also hear that its expensive there too..I dont know how much we will have to pay for as it is purely a stopover..so if anyone out there has been,it would be nice to have some info,please. Whats the airport and duty free like?

look forward to replies
tina+t

Eek! thats it, how adorable, thank you.

I presume you mean Tokyo (Narita airport). The weather in that part of the country is hot in the summer and crispy cold in the winter. So it depends when you go, as beginning of september is very hot compared to UK and end october is a lot colder. This is the time of year when the temperature moves distinctly week to week.

How long are you going for? are you going in to the local town, or just staying at the airport?

Japan can be very expensive, and it can be a lot cheaper, depending on where you go and what you do. If there for a short time, its more difficult to find the cheap places.

Japan is a place where image and presentation are all. Therefore cost is important, but the more expensive the better! So there is no real duty free place at the airport, as it is geared to the japanese traveller taking presentation boxes of cakes and sweets to office colleagues or friends. I wouldn't bank on doing any shopping there, as I would doubt that you could get anything there that you couldn't get in town significantly cheaper.

My own personal view is that most westerners either love or hate Japan, with very few opinions in the middle. If you're only there for a few days, it's difficult to get under the skin of the country, and really appreciate the subtleties. However much time you spend there its certainly different, and an experience.

My OH is there at the moment so I will ask him when he gets in touch. He's been a few times now and has always really enjoyed himself, even though his trips have been for business. The people are very friendly and there are cheaper shops if you look for them.

Apparently they do have a version of our one pound shop - but in translation becomes a 60p shop!!!! So not everything is that expensive.

Anyone know what sort of price i would be looking at for a 2 week trip or 1 week trip to japan, not too bothered about accomodation.

Does it have a good nightlife? Or would it depend what part, any advice please?