Good budget hotel in Asahikawa - Toyoko Inn Asahikawa Ekimae Ichijo-dori

This hotel is a short walk from Asahikawa Station. Had no problem pulling our trolley bags over the snow-covered paths. It was cold enough so there was no slush, just dry snow. Stayed here for two nights (22^nd - 23^rd Dec 2011) which turned out to be fortuitous as there was much more snow here than in Sapporo where we stayed the previous night.

A nice view of the hotel's snow-covered carpark from the breakfast area.

Earlier, when we left Hakodate and had arrived at a Sapporo that was so miserably sparse with snow, my kids were certainly unhappy we had left behind the thick blanket of snow that covered everything in Hakodate. (Yup, there was slush on the ground in Sapporo, which is a little icky.) But delight returned to their faces when we reached Asahikawa.

Day 24 breakfast was okay.

The breakfast served on 23rd December at this hotel was all right. 23rd December is a public holiday as it was the Emperor's birthday, hooray, for we got a 30% discount on our rooms on public holidays as we'd signed up as Toyoko Inn members at the very first Toyoko Inn hotel we stayed at.

I liked everything about this hotel except its breakfast on the morning of 24th December 2011. I liked all things that I have come to associate with the Toyoko Inn chain – very clean rooms, newish rooms (totally does not look run-down at all), good location and good value. But this particular Toyoko Inn outlet disappointed with its poor breakfast spread. It had actually managed to earn the title of “the worst breakfast served” among the 12 Toyoko Inns that we stayed in during our 28-day trip.

Day 25 breakfast was NOT okay

Breakfast was just plain sliced bread (fortunately there’s a bread toasting machine) with butter and strawberry jam, a very basic miso soup, and very plain looking onigiri and pickles, a simple salad, and some seasoned brown noodles (I put a few strands of this noodle in my bit of salad to jazz it up a bit and it did become a little more palatable). Eggs? Hotdogs? Dream on.

Even the coffee came in a thermos, not those coffee machines that offered choice of coffee, espresso or cappuccino. Sigh. I guess the other 10 Toyoko Inns which we had stayed in (before arriving here) had fed us better and we had come to expect no less from Toyoko Inn.