Tosho Kaikan Tokyo

Hi,
I found this accommodation in Tokyo near Hamamatsucho. The pricing felt a bit low for the location though. Not sure what kind of place it is but seems I cannot book this through the web? I speak some basic Japanese but would be better if could e-mail instead of call them as the might mishear my broken Japanese =/

http://www.tosho-kaikan.jp/

Tosho （島嶼） Kaikan is established for the residents of islands of Tokyo prefecture, Izu islands and Ogasawara islands. So they can book the room 4 months in advance while others can book it one month in advance. As far as I know they only accept the reservation via telephone.

Thank you frog-san. So reserving as a non island resident (i e foreignerk) would be no problem just it has to be done through phone right?

Would it be hard as a non fluent Japanese speaker to make a reservation? I mean, just saying dates, nights, name, country... what else, oh number of guests of course. And breakfast (if that is not just for island residents).

I did call Toyoko Inn once but they spoke so quick and I am not too sure they understood all my saying (might have pronounced it wrong, asking if "robii wa kinen desu ka?". As they had no lobby in that sense maybe that's what went wrong but I did not get the message through though (maybe I spoke in an accent).

So reserving as a non island resident (i e foreignerk) would be no problem just it has to be done through phone right?

Yes. But the fare is somewhat more expensive if you are not an islander.

Would it be hard as a non fluent Japanese speaker to make a reservation?

Well, it might be hard for the hotel person :). I think you do not need to speak in Japanese. Sometimes broken Japanese is harder to catch for Japanese people than the slow and clear English. If your mother tongue shares 5 vowels with Japanese, your English will be easy to follow by many Japanese.

If I were you, I will speak as follows:

Konnichiwa, My name is xxx (break).
I want to reserve a room (break).
The date is from dd December to dd December (break).
We are xx (number of the persons).

Please speak slowly in Japanese.

Good luck!

THank you frog, I will try with that :)