Finding a place to stay

While still in New Zealand, I asked the wife to search for a place to stay as we both did not want to stay with her sister (there's history there) and my searches on Google were only showing expensive stuff and fancy homes for month long stays -- they were all in Tokyo, so wrong city and way out of our price range. We stayed with her brother and family in Kochi when we first got here, but we planned to live in Osaka.

The wife was searching for hotels and trying to find the best deal when I suggested she look for weekly apartments. She didn't think that option existed as most salary men stay in tube hotels overnight.

After some searching under business listings, the wife discovered a lot of weekly apartments. These were located in Nishinomiya, Kobe, Kyoto and other places visitors to Japan usually stay or want to visit. But the owners are very sly -- most (nearly all) offer nothing in the room but a bare mattress, no cups, blankets, pots, chopsticks, spoons, forks, dishes, etc.You have to rent these and / or buy them and Internet usage is very expensive, like $12 a day and we planned on staying two weeks.

The wife decided to look for somewhere local to where she used to live. A place most vsitors to Japan don't visit, unless they live here as there is fuck-all to see and do. A lot of businessmen and university students live in Ishibashi and we figured there had to be a weekly apartment around here. Both of us did not want to rent everything if we could help it. She typed in Ishibashi and got one hit. The place we are staying at includes everything and is cheaper than the other places. The manager is very kind and the room is slightly bigger than a standard 6-jo room. This is probably 8-jo. (see video below, excuse the mess.)




So, if you are planning on coming to Japan, think about getting a weekly apartment, you'll save a few hundred dollars and experience a bit of the real Japan. Plus Ishibashi is a major point for catching trains to Takarazuka, Umeda (Osaka), and other places. Umeda has all the major lines for where you may want to go. Bring a good guidebook with you that has detailed directions, as asking for directions can be difficult.