I made a hotel booking in Kyushu using Rakuten Travel for a room type that I could not find on hotels, agoda, booking, japanican. Those other sites only offered a J-style room option.

I tried to book it (Unzen Sky Hotel) at their website but couldn't find an English page, so I tried booking using their (translated) Japanese page but it required a Japanese address (I tried using the address of Grand Hyatt Fukuoka, but no luck). That was where I saw the hotel had Japanese-Western style rooms as well several meal options.

progol mentioned using Rakuten and I googled the name and went to the site but it was just a shopping site. Went back to google the hotel name and found a link to a google page that listed different booking sites. Among them was Rakuten Travel.

The Rakuten Travel site offered the J-W style room (i.e. J-style with bed) that I wanted. The price was the same as the one I saw at the hotel webiste. It includes the standard kaiseki meal and breakfast. I will try to get one of the upgraded meals (maybe the concierge at the GH Fukuoka hotel can get it arranged a few days in advance, or maybe at the hotel at check-in - it has lots of rooms so maybe they will have enough local wagyu and crab to add).

Got a 10% discount for my first booking at the site. Also, Rakuten Travel had better cancellation terms than the hotel (free cancellation 8 days before vs ~30 days). This was impotrtant because I will have to cancel the trip if the Angels get to the ALCS.

Great, mrwunrfl, I'm glad you were able to use it successfully.

Just back from a short visit to Tokyo researching service apartments, 30-90 day rentals. We noticed a surprising difference in the amount of people masking from this past January, both travelers and Japanese. Unmasked people are everywhere now, on the street, on trains and subways, stores, restaurants, the airport and while flying.

With an expected ninth wave this summer, older travelers or those with health issues should be aware and take necessary precautions.

curiousgeo, your comment is worth a separate post. Few people will see it as this post is really about the site, Rakuten travel.

Please post your experience with apartment rentals.

It was good to learn aboiut Rakuten Travel as a booking option.

I went back to the hotel website and was able to book the same room but with the meal option that I really wanted, thanks to the translate option in MS Edge browser.

The one thing I had missed was that it wanted your name entered on two separate lines. It gave the examples of Tabito Yamada on the first line and Yamada Tabito on the second line. I made sure that Tabito was a firstname and then entered my name on both lines with the same ordering.

The other thing I had to do was to enter a Japan postal code. I used the one for the hotel in Fukuoka and got to the payment options page: pay at hotel or pay by cc. I chose the latter and saw it get posted at amex right away.

I went back and tried again and found that using 000-0000 as the postal code would work just as well.

I started to cancel the Rakuten reservation only to be reminded that I would give up the first-time 10% discount. I like discounts but it was only $15, so I think I will get over losing that. With the meal upgrade the rate went from 24,000 to 32,000 JPY for room and two meals.

With the meal included, it sure sounds like you did well!

I hope so.They havw a J-style room with a room only rate of 18,000, or 19,000 b&b rate (no dinner option). Then J&W style room 24,000 with standard local kaiseki dinner and breakfast. Then another 8,000 to add the local wagyu beef and crab to the dinner.

I really should try to figure out what is in the standard dinner. I didn't do that when I booked the ryokan in Beppu. The dinner featured fugu, a somewhat chewy fish with not much flavor. One of the fugu dishes was a blue plate with fugu sashimi, sliced thin and almost transparent, arranged in a chrysanthemum pattern. Thing is that I had seen that, plate and all, for sale at the fish market in Shimonoseki years ago. The best part of the meal was the bit of beef. Fabulous lodging and hosts, though.

Shimonoseki is famous for fugu. I just watched a youtube walk-around of Karato Market there to make sure my memory was correct. There it was, blue/white plates of fugu sashimi for ¥1000 on sale for ¥800. My guess is that they sell most/all to the area ryokan. It would be a PITA to slice and prepare a plate.

Service apartments (usually 30-90 days) are somewhat in between short term rentals along the lines of Airbnb and corporate rentals of 1-2 years. There are quite a few companies like Oakwood, Mori, Citadine, etc., that specialize in this niche.

We previously found one we really liked in Ebisu which we had booked for 2020 and 2021. Located on a quiet backstreet, lots of greenery, 5 minute walk to a great supermarket, near shops and restaurants. Alas covid shutdowns and loss of business forced the company to close and sell off the units as condos.

So we’ve looked at some in Toranomon, near Tokyo Station, Shirokanedai and Roppongi. The Roppongi property looked the most promising, in a quiet area away from Roppongi’s nightlife on the edge of Azabu Juban. Close to metro with a grocery store, small shops and restaurants nearby, a real neighborhood. A one bed one bath with full kitchen and washer drier. Will probably use it as a base then plan 2-3 night trips outside the city.