Grand Prince Hotel Akasaka opening a temporary evacuation center for the earthquake sufferers
Grand Prince Hotel Akasaka, one of the most famous first-rated hotel in Tokyo started accepting sufferers from the earthquake disaster, tsunami,and nuclear leakage in the northeast region in Japan on this April 9th. http://www.princehotels.com/en/akasaka/
That hotel closed and terinated its accomodation services at the end of this March after its 56 -year history as one of the fanciest hotels in Japan since 1955. However, the company decided to provide kidging service as a free evacuation center for the refugees from the damaged areas of the tragic huge earthequake, tsunami, and the power plant disasters on Mar. 11th and following days.
People give compliments to the generous attittude of the diginified hotel with traditions. Actually, my family and I stayed at that hotel last year and enjoyed it very much with its splendid building,environment,and services. Originally, the hotel’s premises were the cottage of Kishuu clan or Kishuu Tokugawa family which had been a branch family of the Tokugawa shogun in the Edo Era about 200 hundred years ago, and after that became a residence of Prince Kitashirakawa, and finally residence of the royal family of the Kingdom of Korea (Great Korea Empire). I gu(/李玖), the last crown prince of the Korean dynasty and a second cousin of the current emperor of Japan, passed away at this hotel in 2005.

The old residence of the old Prince Kitashirakawa and the old residence of the old royal family of Korea in the Grand Prince Hotel Akasaka's land
All the hotel guest rooms are corner ones with big windows so that guests can enjoy the beautiful scenery from them. I do remember the lavish stay there.
For this charitable service of the hotel, some 170 households or 360 people are going to stay at the hotel. The accommodation fees with meals for the suffering refugees are to be at the expenses of the Japanese government. Yet they will be allowed to stay at the hotel until the end of this June, and then, they will have to move, which implies the sufferers will have to find the next lodging or permanent homes soon. I hope all the suffereres will be able to re-establish their stable lives so soon after the temporary camp life at Grand Prince Hotel Akasaka.