Uguisuan 鶯庵

This place was beautiful, clean and spacious. The bedroom upstairs is huge, the living room/ second bedroom downstairs also large. The kitchen is good with an induction cooktop, decent size fridge, microwave, kettle, all the pots, pans, plates, cups you need. There is a laundromat around the corner with clothes dryers if you do your washing while here, which was convenient. There is a small paid parking lot at the end of the street if you have a rental car. There are a few convenience stores and restaurants nearby as well. Even a Domino's pizza which was better than the Aussie ones.

Loved everything, but if I had to choose one thing it would be that there is only one toilet, and I was staying in the upstairs room, so I had to navigate the whole house to get to the toilet in the middle of the night haha.

Very convenient for transport links in Kyoto

Booking. Com sent us a ‘pin number’ on making the booking. This looked like an access PIN number so we tried to use it to get in to the property. In fact this is not the access pin, but we weren’t to know that. Took a phone call at 8pm at night to the Japanese contact number to get access.

The Uguisuan house is in a great location a 10 minute walk from the train station. It's a traditional Japanese row house that has high-end furniture, including two single beds. There is another bedroom with a traditional Japanese floor mattress, and the kitchen has all the amenities, including a dishwasher.

1)There is no sofa in the living room, so you need to sit on the floor. 2) The stairs going up to the second floor are very steep, almost like a tired latter, and the steps are about 5 inches deep. I had to pull myself up the tread steps sideways to get up the stairs. You need to be very careful on the way down. 3) You need to step up into the house, about 2 feet, but the doorway opening is only 6 feet high. This means, as you step up, you need to crouch down or you'll hit your head. You only have around a 4 foot opening to step into. I took the skin of the top of my head several times, coming and going out of the property. 4) All the doorways are 5'8" tall, which I consistently hit my head on. The downstairs ceilings are only 7 feet high. The house is perfect if you're a hobbit or really want to experience a traditional Japanese house.

Location: 5 min walk from the train line, there is a good ramen shop & onsen nearby.

We had several issues with cleanliness. Surfaces above 175 cm were quite dusty, and there was a very unpleasant smell at the entrance (possibly cat urine), which we noticed every time. After we raised the issue, the place was cleaned again, and the cleanliness was acceptable after that, except the smell remained. We also experienced the sound of cats fighting on several nights, which disturbed our sleep. Please also be aware that the ceiling height in the bathroom and toilet is very low — if you’re over 180-185 cm tall, it will feel extremely cramped. The apartment looks significantly better in the photos than in real life, which was a bit disappointing. In several areas, the wallpaper was stained, and the electrical wiring had been installed on the outside of the walls without any cable covers. The staff did try to be helpful, but overall, our stay was not very comfortable.