Good budget hotel in Tokyo - Toyoko Inn Kanda Akihabara

I liked this Toyoko Inn – the location was good for my plans, and it provided the usual high standard of cleanliness and newish rooms, and a good breakfast – great value for budget rates.

Day 27 hotel breakfast

As we had stayed at Toyoko Inn Ikebukuro 2 for 5 nights (30Nov-4Dec 2011) in Tokyo prior to activating our JR Pass, we had, during those days explored places more or less in the west part of Tokyo – Ikebukuro, Shinjuku, Shibuya, Harajuku, Roppongi.

On our return to Tokyo after exploring along the route from south Japan (Kyushu) to north Japan (Hokkaido), I decided to pick Toyoko Inn Kanda Akihabara as it was near these other places on the east part of Tokyo that I wanted to visit – Akihabara (just one-stop from Asakusabashi Station), Ueno (just 2 stops from Asakusabashi) & Asakusa (just 2 stops from Asakusabashi). We stayed for 2 nights – 25^th & 26^th December 2011 – enough time for sightseeing and final rounds of shopping.

Asakusabashi Station

I picked a hotel within walking distance from a JR station (for this hotel it’s Asakusabashi Station on the JR Sobu Line) because the day we arrive in Tokyo from Hokkaido, we’d still be using our JR Pass, though it was the very last day of our 21-day JR Pass. Plus, I like the name Kanda. It reminds me of Yuu Kanda from the anime D-Grayman.

And from Asakusabashi Station, it was 6 stops to get to Yotsuya Station (both stations are on JR Sobu line) which is next to St Ignatius Catholic Church, to attend the Christmas Mass (English) at noon on Christmas Day. Previously on 4th December 2011, I remember we had to change trains to get to St Ignatius ‘s Sunday Mass (4pm, English) when we were staying at Toyoko Inn Ikebukuro 2 then.

I also wanted to stay near Ueno as I had planned to get to Narita Airport (for our flight home) the cheapest way (as there’s six of us) – by using the Keisei Main Line (I’d thought we’d get to Nippori Station via Ueno Station to catch the Keisei Main Line to NRT) instead of taking the more expensive NEX or Liners.

But on the night of our departure, I happened to use Jorudan and it said to go from Asakusabashi to Oshiage (6 mins via Toei Subway Asakusa line), then to Aoto (9 mins via Keisei Oshiage line local) then to NRT T1 (66min via Keisei Main Line Ltd Express). It looked like a lot of transfers and hauling of our trolley bags and looking for right platforms and right trains at each transfer.

On the Keisei Main Line train heading to Narita Airport

Nevertheless, undaunted, we tried it the next day, and we found the 3 transfers not at all as bad as it looked on paper. We did not have to change platforms at all. One train drops you on the left side of the platform while the other one picks you up on the right side of the same platform. So it was merely alight from one train, pull trolley bag, say five paces to the other side of same platform and hop in another train. It's evident the smart people who plan train routes had thought it through very well. Good job!

On hindsight, one thing I liked about getting to NRT this way was the free and easy feel about it (since we had given ourselves ample time). There was no scheduled train which we have to catch at a certain time (as there are no reserved seating on these trains anyway). Basically, we just hop into the next train that came by (as long as we've ascertained it was going where we wanted to go), and that was how we made all 3 transfers to NRT. (Oh, contrast that with making sure we catch all those time-scheduled shinkansens and night trains to go from city to city with reserved seat tickets!)

On the day of our departure, we left the hotel at 2.15pm and arrived at NRT T1 (then short walk to NRT International Airport T1, dropped by the JR office to turn in our suica and get our suica deposit refunded, then a bit of time spent looking for Delta counter) for check in slightly before 4.30pm for our 6.25pm Delta flight.

So the whole thing (plus walking from hotel to Asakusabashi Station) took slightly over 2 hours and just 1060Y per adult on our suica (half for child) – that was fine as we had time. (We got the one-way NEX and suica package, and not the two-way NEX and suica package, on our way in to Tokyo from NRT on arrival as the two-way NEX tickets are only valid for up two weeks – our trip was 4-week long).

After checking in our luggage with the airline (the queue was very short then as we were third in line immediately, but Delta’s self-check in machine was such a frustrating letdown and totally incompetent for checking in a group of six people), we still had an hour to check out the airport mall before boarding time (5.30pm) came round. We discovered the airport mall is HUGE – one hour is certainly not enough if you like shopping a lot. Luckily for us, we’ve long finished all our shopping the day before.

On leaving the airport mall an hour later, we joined the very long queue for security clearance in order to get to the departure gate for boarding. Glancing over to the check-in area on our right, I saw long queues of people over there too. Boy, were we glad we did not have to first get through that long check-in mess, and then face another long queue for the security clearance.

I got beeped by the metal detector doorway thingy during security clearance and was told to remove my shoes and try again. No big deal for lots of people had to remove their shoes. Anyway, it’s like the norm in America and it’s a Delta flight, after all. All those wearing boots had to take them off even before they got to the doorway thingy. Turned out it was my pretty hairclip (bought in Japan) that caused the beep.

Dang, after that we had another incident where my son’s prized souvenir buy - a katana umbrella (long, black umbrella where the handle resembles the handle of a Japanese katana/sword) - was not allowed as carry-on luggage. But I’ll talk about that in another post, as it’s getting too long here.