Sakura House

Life is full of surprises and opportunities. Last year, I was in need of place to stay for a month. Hotels are too expensive and not suitable for a long stay, and I wanted some comfort.

All of these and some input from my friends led me to Sakura House Website. It is such a comfort for me to see all the steps in English.

Sakura House has hotel, dormitory, personal room, vacation apartments, and all many more to choose based on your needs.First item is checked I need a place to stay and Sakura House offers that.

Then, I was looking for my personal preferences like place, the bedding, full Japanese experience of western style, what is inside the room (TV, fridge, bookshelf), how many people stay, and all…

Surprisingly, whenever I enter a preference there are always options. You know when you want TV in your room but the only available room is too pricey or far from your work or school or possible tourist spots that you have to compromise your preferences. Forget that. That does not happen in Sakura House.

Second item to choose is exactly which place to stay. I never felt so free to choose.

What I was afraid of was the administration or paperwork part. It may take days to finish that procedure.

I filled the online reservation form for a room that I liked. I just went on with my life since I don’t expect a reply till the next day, and as my expectation was that when they reply, they will ask more questions before moving on to the actual steps.

It is wonderful when reality is better than expectations.

I got a reply email in one hour with the actual steps of reservation. One hour… 60 minutes…

Though I need to specify that I was in Tokyo time zone, it may be different if you email when everyone is sleeping in Tokyo.😀

Then I needed to pay the deposit and voila, the day I plan to move in, I went to the Sakura House office, filled the forms, paid my rent, got the keys and started everything blissfully and without even uttering one word in Japanese.

Now comes the second part, how is everything actually going to work, from cleaning to personal space…

The room was clean, the bedding sheets were clean, the communal spaces were clean, toilets and bath were clean.

I told myself, it is high hopes for all to stay that clean… Apparently it was not. Everyone was quite respectful and clean, once a week there is cleaning and maintenance staff coming to the house…

And in case there are some dysfunctional things, like forgetting to take out the garbage or smoking, all of the residents of the house receive a warning e-mail as a first step, though I am sure they are many more steps until the problem is solved.

My second worry was the personal privacy and space in communal areas like bath shelves or fridge shelves…

Japanese perfectionism won me over one more time with the boxing and numbering system put in order by Sakura House. Sakura House think about every little detail in full of boxes and shelves with room numbers written on.

One by one all my worries evaporated, and I enjoyed my stay. 

The best ending to my blissful story with Sakura House was an expected and relaxing moving out day. On the day and specific hour appointment designed by yourself of moving out, a staff calmly knocked my door. 

The moving out procedure took 5 minutes, the Sakura House Staff Checked the room, took my keys and gave back 75 % of my deposit back. Generally in Japan, when you rent a place the deposit that you gave is used for the cleaning after you leave, and most of the time you get nothing back from the deposit. So, to specify, 75 % of the deposit is a huge and a positive policy of Sakura House.

Just as I moved in, and I moved out happily of Sakura House.

Cheers,

Ece