I stayed at Yuki's 100 year old wooden house for seven nights in mid-October. My situation is a bit unusual in that I live in nearby Yokohama and rented this house to work on a writing project. Hiro-o is my favourite Tokyo neighbourhood and there are fantastic restaurants and bakeries and an excellent grocery store within a ten minute walk of Yuki's house.
Yuki's wife, Emuri, and their small daughter met me at Starbucks, showed me around the house and answered all of my questions. I felt very welcome. I met Yuki on my last day and he was as friendly in person as he was in our email conversations.
The house is as lovely and cosy as it appears in the photographs. I slept in the bedroom downstairs and the bed was extremely comfortable.
Although this house is old and has great character, it has been newly renovated so the kitchen and bathrooms are very modern. There are air conditioning/heating units in the bedroom and upstairs. I used the kitchen all week and found that Yuki and Emuri had provided me with some snacks, a coffee maker, garbage bags, paper towel, plastic wrap and other items that made cooking at the house much easier.
If I were visiting Tokyo, this would be an amazing (and affordable) home base from which to see the city.
I am grateful to Yuki and Emuri for a lovely stay at their home in Hiro-o and a week of very productive writing time. I was sad to leave.