Living & Working in Ishikawa, Japan
If you’re looking for an inexpensive place to stay near the heart of Osaka, I recommend J-Hoppers Osaka Central. J-Hoppers is a small chain of hostels with locations in Osaka, Kyoto, Hiroshima, and Hida Takayama.
Photo from J-Hoppers.
The Osaka Central location is about a 20-minute walk from JR Osaka （大阪駅）/Hankyuu Umeda Stations （梅田駅） and 5 minutes from the JR Fukushima* Station (福島駅) on the Osaka Loop line. Make sure you have a map if coming from the Osaka station, as the path is a little confusing the first time.
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Japan has a few very heavy traveling seasons (Obon, Golden Week in May, New Year’s, and school breaks), and if you’ve ever traveled during those times, you know that Japanese people make their travel plans far in advance.
My husband and I once made the mistake of traveling to Kyoto during cherry blossom season with no hotel reservations, and when we asked the tourist office for help finding accomodations, we were able to grab the last room available. At that point, individuals weren’t even being considered for rooms, and the tourist office was frantically turning away travelers who had assumed that somewhere in Osaka, Kyoto, or Nara there would be room for at least 1 person to fit in. No such luck.
The Welcome Inn Reservation Center (WIRC) is the answer to the foreign tourists who don’t speak Japanese, but would like to have a little control over their accomodations when traveling. It’s actually the same system that the Kyoto Tourism office uses when you go ask for them to help you find a hotel.
The WIRC features business hotels, ryokans, minshuku, capsule hotels, and other forms of accomodation (confused? — WIRC explains types of Japanese accomodation). The accomodations must be priced “affordably”; they can’t charge more than 8,000 yen per single room or 13,000 yen per double room for most of the year. They also have to be welcoming to foreign guests.
Using WIRC
The website has recently been redesigned, so it’s more visually appealing and easier to use. Just choose a region you’re interested in traveling to, then search through the accomodation options. (Be sure to note if you’ll be traveling during the ON, REGULAR, or OFF seasons, as that can really affect pricing!) Many of the listings include maps, photos of the rooms, and other important details to help you make your decision.
When you’ve decided on a place you like, click the “Apply Now” button. You’ll need to fill out some details about your check in/check out time, as well as who will be staying with you. If you’ve never used this site before, you’ll need to sign up for an account in order to make the reservation. When you confirm your details, they’ll send a request to the hotel for you to stay there. Within 3 days you will receive an email saying if your reservation has been arranged. You can make your payment to the hotel when you arrive.
**Important: When you sign up for an account, you need to give them your credit card number. Your credit card will not be charged when you make a reservation (you’ll pay when you get there). However, if you have to cancel your reservation, most accomodations have a cancellation fee and you may be charged. Since there’s a potential 3-day wait to hear if your reservation has been accepted, be sure to give yourself plenty of time when making travel plans through this website. Always double-check your travel plans to be sure you won’t need to cancel!
Also, for those of us in Ishikawa, you can see that there’s a pretty sorry selection of accomodations for our region. This doesn’t reflect the truth of the number of affordable accomodations out here (nor does it mean they’re all foreigner-phobic!). If you happen to know someone who runs a small ryokan or affordable accomodation, recommend that they add their accomodations to this website! It’s a great resource and a great way to get their business known to more foreigners.
Need a place to stay in Kanazawa? Tatami time-share is great, of course, but what if you have friends or family coming with you? I recommend Guest House Pongyi, a charming hostel located in the heart of Kanazawa.
Guest House Pongyi
Guest House Pongyi (ゲストハウスポンギー) is nestled into the buildings by the Kuratawa Canal. The atmosphere of Pongyi is lovely. The building was once the house of a merchant, which lends a nostalgic feel to the place.
For only 2600 per night, you can stay in the male or female dormitory (4 bunks each; if you’re booking a group, you can ask to be placed together, depending on availibility), or, for 6000 yen per night, you can stay in a tatami room (sleeps 4). (The price drops to 10,000 yen per for this room if you book four people at once). One hundred yen of your fees will be donated to help poor children in Asia.
My friends and I rented out the whole men's dorm together since it was open.
Each bed in the dorm-style rooms has its own curtain and its own light. The bathrooms have racks for drying your clothes and towels. There’s a communal bath, or you can go to a nearby onsen for showering and bathing. (My group came back rather late from our day’s excursion, so we decided on the onsen). The website has a break-down on what amenities the facility has, but, in brief, you can rent towels and yukata for cheap, and you can use the kitchen equipment, a padlocked locker for your valuables, and the internet for free. Of course, like any other bed and breakfast or hostel, how well you sleep will really depend on your bunkmates and fellow guests, so bring your friends—the more, the merrier!
Not only is the inside of the hostel nice, but the location is amazing. You can leisurely sit outside over the canal in the morning sunlight when the weather is nice. It’s only a short walk (5-10 min) from Kanazawa Station and downtown Kanazawa, and 20 minutes from Higashiyama Tea District and Kenrokuen Garden. The area also has a convenience store and several restaurants nearby.
A place to sit by the canal
Yokokawa Masaki, the proprietor, is wonderfully friendly. He has traveled to Brazil and Myanmar, where he lived as a Buddhist monk. The hostel reflects his personality and experiences—it is simultaneously cosmopolitan and homey, and it exudes an air of serenity. Masaki-san encourages foreigners as well as Japanese to stay in his hostel, and he loves to hear about his guests’ home countries and experiences. Travelers, be sure to bring Masaki-san a nice omiyage from your town!
Leah Zoller is a first-year CIR in Anamizu and likes the top bunk.
Access
〒920-0868 石川県金沢市六枚町2-22，076-225-7369
2-22 Rokumai-machi, Kanazawa, Ishikawa, Japan
Tel: 076-225-7369 (in Japan)
+81-76-225-7369 (from other country)
E-mail: mail@pongyi.com
English website: http://english.pongyi.com/
Japanese website: http://pongyi.com/
Parking is available across the lane for 900 yen for 24 hours..
By bus or train, get off at Kanazawa Eki, and walk for about five minutes from the East Exit. Masaki-san has posted detailed bilingual access instructions with pictures here.
Winter cabin fever got you down?
I know sometimes I feel a little bit country…and sometimes I feel like I just need to get the heck out of here.
If you live in the Noto or Nanao and need your Tokyo fix, there’s a new bus route available for your night riding pleasure. Most of us are familiar with the JR highway night bus from Kanazawa station costs 7,840 for a one way ticket and 14,110 for a round-trip ticket (must be within 10 days). For those of us living further north, the drive down and parking situation makes a Tokyo trip more trouble than it’s worth.
Fortunately, starting February 20th, there is a bus that will start its route at Nanao station. It’s only going to run on Friday and Saturday nights until mid-March, when it will run daily. The bus is by a company called Maru Ichi Kankou (丸一観光). The bus’ name is Green Liner (グリーンライナー). So far, the price of a one-way ticket is either 6,000 or 5,500 yen. It seems to vary depending on the day but, I don’t see any pattern (like weekends being a different price than weekdays).
Tickets are only available online. Since the website is in Japanese only, you may need someone to help you book. The website is http://www.travel.rakuten.co.jp. Here is some information about the route offered.
Tokyo Disney 21:30 –> Tokyo Station 22:20 –> Shinjuku Station 23:00 –> Kanazawa Station 7:30 –> Nanao Station 9:00
Nanao Station 8:20 –> Kanazawa Station 10:00 –> Shinjuku Station 6:30 –> Tokyo Station 7:00 –> Tokyo Disney 7:30
In case you don’t know about the alternate Kanazawa to Tokyo buses that are cheaper than JR, there are the following: Hokkoku Kankou’s Orion Bus (オリオンバス), that’s one-way ticket is 4,300 yen and Star Express Willer Travel’s Go Go Bus (ゴーゴーバス), that starts at Jusco (もりの里 ) shopping center and costs 4,600 yen with toilet and 4,400 without toilet.
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