Oak Hotel Tokyo

Your place of lodging is the most important thing on any trip; yet we all want it to be as cheap as possible so that we may spend money on other things.

Before visiting Tokyo for the first time I did alot of research and ended up staying at the Oak hotel located a casual 10 minute walk away from Ueno JR station. This location is ideal simply because from Ueno station you can litarly go anywhere in Japan as almost every line you will use has a stop there including the Keisei Skyliner station that links to Narita airport. To give you some travel time estimates to other destinations from Ueno:
Yokohama 35 minutes(or 25 with the faster more expensive line), Akihabara 4 minutes, Asakusa 3 minutes (take the subway) Shibuya 20 minutes and narita 60 minutes with the keisei.

Oak hotel prides itself in being affordable and tourist friendly. The staff are a mix of foreign expats and local Japanese whom all speak English incredibly good. They are well prepared to receive tourists as the front desk has an entire section with helpfull free magazines, brochures, guides and street/transit maps ! The staff itself will make suggestions if you ask them for something in particular.

Because Ueno itself isn't the hustle and bustle of some other areas of Tokyo such as Shibuya or Shinjuki means that it's less noisy.
Oak hotel is in a sidestreet paralel to asakusa-dori that leads from the JR station straight to Asakusa and as such it's pretty quite, especially at night.
Nothing happens in Ueno - at all.

You have alot of cheap restaurants around the Oak hotel, a K-books, Mcdonalds and a 7/11 which is really important seeing as 7/11's are one of the few places you can get money from your bank account with a non-Japanese card. (take note :200 yen service charges each time you withdraw cash)

For those travelling with laptops, you will be pleased to know that internet is completly free.Simply ask for the internet package which is consisted of a lan cable and a small cable modem. There is no Wi-Fi in the rooms, but almost every laptop has a lan port so your ogod.
Wi-Fi internet is available in the lobby downstairs along with several computers for those without a laptop to use to surf the internet or use the provided skype phone; all for free.Much to my surprise, the internet speed was blazing fast so that updating the folks back home with pictures and videos was easy !

There's the usual hotel stuff, such as coin laundry, a general kitchen to use downstairs, and 2 drink dispensers that you`ll find everywhere in Japan.

The rest of the room is rather standard, not very big. I had a single room. 1 Bed,1 desk with a chair (handy for laptop use) and a small cabinet with a TV.
The TV had a limited amount of channels, optionally you could get a pre-paid satelite TV card.
The bathroom and toilet are built into a sort of cabinet in the room, this is a popular practice in Japan to upgrade their hotels to Western standards. It does the job albeit it being on the small side so I imagine if your a couple thats alot of fiddle you could avoid showering seperate.

Again I have to say how helpfull the staff is. You can really rely on them to ask you out helping you along your trip or general advice.
This added service will be of great value to tourists.

All in all, I can only say nothing but recommend the Oak hotel for its central hub location , price and service.
That is, if you can deal with a boringly decorated room :-)
Google Oak Hotel to find their website !

For the price, the Oakhotel is a good place to stay if your visiting Tokyo. Handy for the Ueno station which will give you fast and cheap access to all of Tokyo, the Oakhotel is resaonable accommodation at a cheap price (for Tokyo anyway) in a good location.