Where to stay (family of 5) in Japan?

We have an opportunity of some cheap flights into Tokyo for 10 days in mid-April but we are struggling with accommodation.

We are relaxed about where to stay and where to go within the country but any advice regarding accommodation would be most welcome.

With a relation.

We were lucky when we went to Japan that we had a relation working over there and we stayed with him. He was in a house owned by the British bank he was working for at the time. (It was a three-bedroomed detached house in Tokyo, worth around £3.5m and that was a few years ago, which tells you all you need to know about the profligacy of banks).

Sorry I've not been much help on that.

As for places to go and things to see.

Take the train to Nikko, the former seat of the Shoguns. Amazing temples and shrines amid fantastic scenery (not boring, at all)

Also get on the Shinikansen (bullet train) and head to Kyoto. You can comfortably do a day trip to Kyoto from Tokyo.

Visit Kyoto and you'll understand why American academics argued against dropping the second atomic bomb on it, and persuaded the military to drop it on Nagasaki instead.

Greetings from Tokyo.

Google 'business hotels japan', 'ryokan' and 'minshuku' and you should find some useful information.

Business hotels can be good value, as can minshuku (a sort of Japanese B&B) but some ryokans can be expensive, others not so.

You will also find some excellent savings if you buy a Japan Rail card in advance of your trip (you can only buy them outside of Japan) ... http://www.japan-railpass.co.uk/.

The Japan Travel Centre website will be useful ... http://www.japantravel.co.uk/ and the online timetable for Japanese trains may also help in deciding your schedule. There is an English language verson ... http://www.hyperdia.com/en/.

We stayed at the Shinagawa Prince Hotel – nice hotel in a decent location, but not exactly cheap.

One thing I would advise when visiting Toyko is to be prepared for quite a lot of subway travelling: the interesting places to visit are spread out across the city – it’s definitely not like London etc, where most of the sites are within easy walking distance of one another. Another thing we discovered was that the vast majority of Japanese do not speak English – why should they? – and this did lead to one or two difficulties before we met up with our Japanese-speaking son.

Agree with FloridaMarlin that the old part of Kyoto is well worth a visit. My family had our own room in a youth hostel when we stayed there – not as bad as it might sound, actually. If you are going to do a lot of travelling on the bullet train then it might be worth buying Japan Rail Passes before you go.

Have a good trip, VFTT.

Further to my earlier reply the following link may be of use

http://www.seejapan.co.uk/jnto_consumer/plan-your-trip/accommodation

Try VRBO. A house is going to be much cheaper than a hotel.

http://www.vrbo.com/