Couchsurfing through Chiba

After we left Nikko, we headed back to Tokyo and stayed at New Koyo for a night in a "double" room. It really was just enough room for our bags and for us to sleep, but it worked (and it was cheap). But a tip for anyone else who plans to stay in the Minamisenju area, there are tons of other cheap hostels near New Koyo that are a bit harder to find online. One that I spotted around the corner from New Koyo was Hotel Accela, but unfortunately their site is only in Japanese.

The next day we departed for Chiba to couchsurf in Inage. Our host was great and let us stay for an entire week. She probably would have let us stay longer, but we didn't want to overstay our welcome. Almost the entire week we were in Inage it was pouring rain since there was a typhoon passing through. We spent a lot of the time cooking for ourselves and our host and her friends, which was really fun. During our stay she invited us to a charity potluck in Tsukuba. At the potluck we met lots of interesting people from all over the world that were studying at Tsukuba University. If you have the chance to go to there, I highly recommend checking it out. It is very different from Tokyo and almost reminds me of US suburbs. Our hosts told us that Tsukuba was planned and developed in the 1960s, which might be why it looks the way it does.

While we were in Inage the only places we ate out at were Mos Burger and a Thai restaurant called Siam House that was down the street from where we were staying. Siam House only had two vegan dishes: their famous soup and a stir-fried vegetable plate. The soup cost 1238yen, and it was worth every yen. If you are in Inage and in need of vegan food (or any food for that matter), I definitely recommend you check out Siam House and try the soup.