I hate to create two topics in a day but this has been bugging the heck out of me. I need to find a guesthouse to live in Osaka (cant afford apartment yet). I will need to reserve the first month there before I leave America.

When I lived in Tokyo before I lived in the worst guesthouses ever. Although they were a mix of foreigners and japanese, the foreigners were the only ones you would ever see and it literally felt like I entered America everytime I entered the building. English on the tv all the time, I could hear the loud drunken people even from my room speaking in English.

Are there any guesthouses in Osaka that are small and either mostly Japanese or quiet? I have been searching the last 2 weeks with no luck at all in finding any. I seem to come across the same big name guest houses everytime i search. I know there must be more because its such a big city.

Is there some keyword I should be typing into google to better search for this?

Thanks.

What do you mean by guesthouse? Hostel? Its not in Osaka, but the visitors to Utano Youth Hostel in Kyoto was 100% Japanese (other than my group)

I would be ok with living in Kyoto if it meant all Japanese. Problem with youth hostel is they usually have curfews. And with my job I would be working close to the curfew time.

By guesthouse, I mean a place where I can stay semi long term (up to 6-8 months) until i get enough money to move into an apartment. If its a hostel and you can live there up to 8 months, i can do it. I could also care less if its dorm style shared living, as I used to live like that and just used the living room as my workspace.

Edit: I cant stay at the place you mentioned. it is 3,000 yen a night. so would be like 90,000 a month too expensive.

Look for a monthly mansion. They are slightly more expensive but you get your own place. Commitment is usually 3-6 months.

I will try the monthly mansion if i have to. All pages are in Japanese only so I will have to do some serious SRSing on those pages and hope they let foreigners in.

Was hoping guesthouse for the communal aspect of it. Not that I am going to hang around there all the time, but stuff like talking to people while eating breakfast in the lounge etc is nice.

do you have any reccomended monthly mansion websites?

I heard that Apollo21 (in Osaka) is good. They appear to not have a website (maybe you're supposed to go through a broker?), but I found their phone number in a google 03-3654-7271.

Thanks a lot. I will call them in the next few days. Not sure if they speak English or not so I better start writing down a few of the questions I plan on asking in Japanese.