Pros:
- About 10 minutes taxi away from Haneda.
- Very local feel. It’s not an area where you’re going to find five star “Yelp reviewed” places, but instead you’ll find locally owned restaurants and shops. We didn’t need to find the best tourist reviewed places; we focused on small businesses away from the tourist spots.
- Two train stations in walking distance. One is about 6 minutes and the other 13 minutes. Both have a large amount of local small business restaurants, and enough shopping if you’re a fan of Daiso and Don Quijote stores.
- Two bedrooms. It will be a bit tight for four adults but for a family with 1 or 2 kids it’s fine. We had an 8 year old and it was perfect. The living room area is small for 3/4 adults but 2 adults plus 1 kid was good for us.
- A really good washer/dryer combo machine. We were in town for 11 days and washed at least several loads of clothes.
- Quiet neighborhood. We did hear one of the trains from the closer station but it didn’t bother us since we are used to a little street noise from the USA. Other than the train sound, it was very quiet and we felt safe in that area.
- May lives close by and was there to greet us and showed us around her place. This was really a wonderful gesture despite the fact she has a combination lock available; she didn’t need to do this and we appreciated her extra effort.
- Maretsu supermarket, 2 Aeon small markets, Lawson’s, and 2 7-11s between 1-2 blocks away; Maretsu was about 4-5. 7-11 has some of the best quality food around unlike the disgusting stuff in the USA, plus you can get cash from ATM from your international bank debit card. Mays house was in an extremely convenient location.
- Nice large closet for luggage. Space is scarce in Tokyo. We had 6 pieces of luggage and May was able to store 4/5 of them in her closet under the stairs. Very nice to get them out of the way, plus there was enough storage for other daily used items.
Cons:
- Hot Pot cooking only. This wasn’t really a con for me except I enjoy cooking and would have preferred cooking other items. I would have preferred access to a cutting board, chef knife, a pan, and a pot but May’s place really wasn’t built for doing regular cooking so those items were not available. Not an issue as we ate dinner out and bought items from supermarkets and 7-11.
Overall May was a great host. Her place seemed to be recently renovated and was really convenient. She was there to greet us but what really blew us away was she asked her husband to take us to the airport on our departure day (and rented a van just to do this) when all the taxi services were booked on the morning of our departure. What a truly wonderful experience and gesture that we will never forget!
Oh, and May helped us sort out the garbage since Japan has very strict recycle/garbage rules and she knew we were lost. Basically she came over and took out the garbage for us and made sure it was sorted out correctly, which I am sure it wasn’t on our part. Wow.
Thank you very much again May; we will return soon and hope to stay at your place again. I can only hope we left the place as well as you presented to us. Happy New Year!
Sincerely,
Oscar, Ada, and Keira.