I stayed here as a solo traveler in early January, on a mission to see as many temples and shrines I could in my 3 days in Kyoto. I had a single occupancy room, which was cozy and had everything I needed for my brief stay.

I booked via there website, which was a bit of a pain, because, you can't simply make a booking, you need to become a member of the garden hotel chain before you do, which is quite detailed! Better to just use something like Agoda instead. Only reason I didn't was because Agoda said the hotel was fully booked, never believe that, just contact the hotel and they will always have a room available, as was the situation this time.

The reception have limited English skills, you will need to be patient with them. All my requests and questions did eventually get answered. There main clientele, as far as I could tell were Chinese, Korean and Japanese, I was the only westerner in the whole hotel as far as I saw!

Single bed was comfortable, pillow was alright, it's similar to all the other pillows in Japan, why they don't use feather pillows? They are made out of beads or rice? The room was pretty similar to any western hotel room, apart from the physical size, had a nice 40 inch LCD, free LAN access, nice choice of amenities.

The TV has either free public broadcast television, which is all in Japanese, or, pay per view. Which was at a cost of $10 per day, and included a mix of English and Japanese TV shows and movies. Including an adult section, might want to keep an eye on any teenagers you bring with you, if any lol. There is also an explicit sheet of paper in the desk draw, which describes all the adult movies (and non-adult) and contains dozens of naked Japanese ladies. So if you have kids, maybe hide it somewhere!

There is no mini-bar or room service, which is a bit of a bummer, they do have vending machines on every floor if you wanted a soft drink or beer.

Breakfast was included in my room package, its buffet style, it mostly Japanese style, but they do have a hand full of Western styled dishes, like eggs, sausages, hash browns etc.

The great Navi public bus system has several pick-up and drop-off pints around the hotel. I used the Navi buses every day during my stay, and used them entirely to get around to all the sights in Kyoto, only around Gion did the traffic cause any real delays. The buses come quite often, about every 10 minutes. Learning to understand the Navi bus system is quite confusing at first, the map is a maze of colored squiggly lines, but by the end of the day i was a pro. You can pick up a daily bus pass and map from reception, both items are essential if you plan to use the Navi buses. The pass costs 500 YEN, while a single bus journey without it will cost 220 YEN.