"Homeless for a night" in Hokkaido – on purpose

Cassie Sim
Aug 2, 2019
3 min read

When we booked our hotels and airbnbs in Hokkaido, we intentionally left out a night. Just for fun. Where will the night take us?

After basing ourselves in Asahikawa for a few days, we left the city late on a Thursday night, unsure how the night will unfold. We'd booked an airbnb in Sapporo starting the next day, but we didn't have a place to crash in for the night.

So we gave ourselves a mission: to find random Ryokans (traditional Japanese inns) along the way, before heading to Sapporo the next day.

(Self-imposed) challenge accepted. And this was what we did:

1. "What's the worst that can happen?"

Preparing for the worst case scenario helped. In this case, we figured we might end up sleeping in the car, or perhaps we wouldn’t even get any sleep at all. I think this mental preparation definitely made what we were going through fun, instead of stressful.

2. Searched keywords on Google Maps

We used keywords like “ryokan”, “inn” and “hotel” on Google Maps along our route, and made our way to them.

None of the hotels had any rooms available online. Places in Japan don’t typically have their names in English, nor have any English reviews. So we looked out for places with the characters “旅館” in them. (which stands for “ryokan” in Japanese, meaning inn or hotel).

Then we drove to these places, walked inside, and asked for availability in person.

3. Picked up relevant Japanese phrases

I had learnt chool, but we still had to look up some phrases to get ourselves through the door. Forget being self-conscious, I needed to say it even if it sounded like gibberish! Here are some important ones that we needed:

GOOD EVENING (It’s important to be polite) Kon ban wa

EXCUSE ME (especially if you’re knocking on their doors late in the night) Sumimasen

DO YOU HAVE A ROOM AVAILABLE? Ai-tei-ru Heya wa, arimasu ka?

ONE PERSON Hitori TWO PERSONS Futari THREE PERSONS San-nin

I AM <INSERT NATIONALITY> Watashiwa <INSERT COUNTRY NAME> jin desu (The literal translation for this is “I am <INSERT COUNTRY NAME> person.”)

English names are usually translated into Japanese using Katakana, and they sound very similar. For example, Singapore = SHIN GA PO RU America = AH MEH RI KA Malaysia = MA RE SHYA England = IN GU RAN DO etc.

WHAT IS THE PRICE? Ikura desu ka?

WHERE IS THE SHOWER? Shawa wa doko desu ka?

THANK YOU Arigato gozai masu

YES Hai NO iie (pronounced eeee-eh, which is actually a lot like “yeah”, lol. But more like “eah”)

And there we go, that's how we started knocking on doors!

Japan is probably the safest place to do something like that. So while my mind was running wild with scenes from horror films... I knew from the bottom of my brave(?) heart that everything was going to be alright. :)

Here's how it went down:

We drove to a couple of ryokans in a small town and unfortunately none of them were available. It’s easy to know even if we didn't understand the language – the owners simply shook their heads vigorously when we asked.

Nonetheless, true to the Japanese hospitality, one owner even called other nearby ryokans to check their availability for us! No luck though, so we had to drive to another town and try again.

One ryokan in particular was PITCH BLACK and COMPLETELY SILENT (cue horror film soundtrack). After waiting alone at the entrance, the owner eventually emerged from the dark and said, Sorry, no room here!

We moved on.

The next ryokan was bright and airy, but no one spoke English. So I started explaining our situation in gibberish Japanese, with a whole lot of hand gestures. I wanted to introduce ourselves and reassure them that we weren’t dangerous foreign criminals.

Video that Eric snuck from the car:

The owner, a small elderly lady, looked me up and down for quite a while, before warily nodding her head and carefully articulating a string of Japanese words.

YASSS, she had a room for us. Hurray!

After asking if we needed dinner (ban gohan), which we didn’t, our Japanese hosts took us to our room and showed us where the shower and sinks were. It was exactly the ryokan we had imagined (or seen on TV).

We were really thankful for their hospitality – and trust.

Conclusion: Walk-in reservations in Japan are totally possible

The room didn’t come cheap (didn’t help that it was our only option), and it certainly didn’t come easy. But that was what made the whole experience so worthwhile and memorable.