We’ve traveled to Tokyo several times with our kids over the years but Japan travel has changed a ton since pre-2020. We finally made it back this August as part of a trip to see family in Singapore and the south of Japan and it turned out that this kind of trip with teenagers is a brilliant idea. (Be warned- if you’ve heard anything about Japan being hot in August, it is incredibly true we brought a handheld fan and it was life-saving) I saw Mimaru hotels come up a lot on Expedia when I was deciding where to book so we spent our first nights in Tokyo at Mimaru Asakusa Station. This hotel was so comfortable and it was convenient to many places we wanted to go.
Have you heard of Mimaru Hotels?
Mimaru hotels are apartment style hotels that are great for families. You can currently find them in Kyoto, Osaka and Tokyo which are usually popular places for travelers from the USA and Canada. Many other hotels in Japan have rooms that can only accommodate three people while Mimaru hotel rooms are great for bigger families or even multigenerational travel. We stayed in two different Mimaru hotels and both had bunk beds for the teens and a small cooking and table space that was great for breakfasts. Our teens are sixteen and they do not count as children at Mimaru hotels, so we had to designate them as adult travelers when we stayed at this one at Askauksa Station. We booked our rooms through Expedia but might have benefited by booking them directly through the hotel. I like to book from one place as much as I can so I can easily keep track of bookings and Expedia has deals through Rakuten (like when I booked I think I got 10% cashback). Mimaru hotels have pretty basic amenities for Japanese hotels but they welcome you to request things like toothbrushes and slippers when you check in. Also Mimaru Hotels don’t include breakfast but we enjoyed getting convenience store breakfasts and eating them in our room. I love Japanese convenience stores they are perfect.
Mimaru Asakusa Station
For our first nights in Tokyo (we flew from Seattle to Narita airport using Alaska Airlines points on JAL-somehow this included a premium economy upgrade that was pretty amazing too) we chose the Mimaru Asakusa Station because it was close to a couple places we wanted to visit and we haven’t stayed in this area before. On prior trips we’ve stayed in Shibuya or at the Tokyo Station Hotel and we haven’t spent as much time in the Askausa Station area. We wanted to visit the Senso-Ji temple as well as the Tokyo Tower. We also booked tickets for a Tokyo Swallows baseball game and it was easy to walk and take the train from our hotel
Places we especially enjoyed nearby the Mimaru Asakusa Station Hotel
For independence, the Mimaru Asakus Station was an idea spot for traveling to Tokyo with teenagers. When they slept in, my husband and I could walk and get coffee or even breakfast. The guys loved being able to choose drinks, snacks, and breakfast things at the Family Mart and 7-11 convenience stores that were both near our hotel. They even went for a run along the water one morning-it was just very hot in August to do a lot of outdoor activities all at once. We had to stop inside often to cool down or even come back to our hotel to change our clothes from sweating so much.
I was looking for places to eat on Google Maps and found a Kura Sushi nearby our hotel. The first time we tried to go, it was so busy we went to another restaurant but we came back at opening the next day-it was early but we were still hungry and the sushi was delicious. The nori was crispier than anything I’ve ever had in North America and each sushi plate was a lot less expensive too. Apparently we have a Kura sushi near us in Seattle where we live but we’ve never been and I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to ever go now after experiencing this one in Japan.
A cafe I’ll dream about forever called Coffee Shop Carib was about a five minute walk from our hotel. I was hot and miserable and complaining after walking to the Tokyo Tower (it was so hot and muggy-do you ever just meltdown like a toddler on a holiday too?) and my husband magically found this place where we were going to go and get just iced drinks but then we added a pizza toast, and a pudding and the breakfast set (the breakfast set was really reasonably priced and I upgraded to an ice coffee) Everything came out on cute little dishes and was beautifully presented. And everything was delicious. (We went back again the next day because I couldn’t find another place in the area that seemed like it would live up to it.)
We were also really close to the Sensoji temple-it was literally a five or so minute walk from where we stayed. My son read somewhere that you need to be a Senso-Ji temple before 9am or you will get lost in a sea of people so we ended up there a few times during our stay and it was definitely less crowded in the early morning. I love all the shops near the temple and it is also really beautiful but I also got a truly horrible fortune there so now I kind of have to rue the actual temple itself just a bit because of it. I did the thing where you tie it on something there to ward away the bad fortune but I did not appreciate getting a bad fortune at all. If the tying it on the bad fortune wall gives you your good fortune back, I just would like good fortune to begin with next time. So I 100% don’t recommend getting your fortune here.
We ate a shave ice (kakigori) here that was very dreamy. I search places through google maps and saw a picture of a spectacular shave ice and it was exactly the same when we got our too. I bought a few cute things at Flower Miffy here. Hat coffee could make coffee art of almost any photo and they made this adorable coffee from a picture of Scout.
(PS. because of the space and the fact they could walk to so many things this hotel ultimately ended up being our teens favorite hotel of the trip.)
Terumi Pong is a Seattle-based family travel writer and mom of twin teenage boys. She loves coffee and pastries, shopping local and looking for greener ways to live. She is also known as Scout’s mom (Scout is a 5ish pound little black yorkie-poo)
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