Yongfook is a web producer and usability consultant based in Tokyo

“It’s only a bit like being dead”

Capsule Hotels are one of those things that people think of when they think “JaPaN!!1 w00t R0×0Rz!!”. It’s one of those unusual phenomenii that is at once completely normal in Japan, and mind-bogglingly wrong/stupid/crap/R0×0Rz to the rest of the world. For those who don’t know, a Capsule Hotel is a certain kind of no-frills hotel, where the rooms are basically capsules that you climb into. The ‘floor’ is a mattress which you sleep on, and you have basic amenities at your disposal such as a light and a small TV. Toilet and bathing facilities are communal.

Staying in a capsule hotel is one of those Japanese rites of passage that you just HAVE to do here, such as eat a bit of nattou or buy tentacle porn. Unlike the last two however, it’s an altogether more rewarding and pleasant experience.

I stayed at the Hakata Capsule Hotel with another capsule hotel virgin (Ken, a friend from the UK who is now on JET) (in separate capsules). It could have simply been the fact that we were a couple of simpering drunken buffoons by this time, but EVERYTHING about the hotel, from check-in until I fell asleep, was just pant-wettingly funny.

First, you stagger towards the front desk, bump into it and slur out a request for a capsule, then notice that you have managed to ignore the several signs on the way to the front desk that you were supposed to take off your shoes somewhere near the elevator, meaning everyone is staring at you like you have just bludgeoned a puppy to death with a brick, whilst thinking of the culturally non-inflammatory way to say “take off your fricking shoes, barbarians!” in English.

Anyway once you get your key, you go to a locker room area (the key is for the locker - the capsules have no doors) and change your clothes. And BOY do you change your clothes. For some reason, perhaps as a kind of sadistic joke to see just how ridiculous Japanese people will make themselves feel before they reeeally start to question why they are paying for the privilege, you have to wear a ‘uniform’ around the hotel. This is a good idea in principal as it means you have something else to sleep in if you didn’t bring a change of clothes, but what they give you to wear is about two bijous away from being the gayest thing I have ever worn in my life.

This, a bright blue Hawaiian-style print shirt complete with a dramatic artists rendition of a sunset and snug-fitting shorts set, really did little to fool me into thinking I was staying at some idyllic island paradise instead of the ugly, generic urban filing cabinet that actually housed this hotel complex. It did however make me want to break out into choruses of “Itsy bitsy teeny weeny yellow polka dot bikini” in between bursts of uncontrollable crying.

Of course, I’m exaggerating and it didn’t look that bad. Indeed, it was only TRULY funny when you passed someone else in the hall and they were wearing exactly the same eye-bleedingly bright ensemble as you, that the sheer comedy-commie aspect of the whole shebang becomes apparent, and words like “dapper”, “mince” and “rootin-tootin fairy boy” kept popping into your head as you both strive not to make eye with each other as it would be like those really naff movie monsters who die when they see their reflection because their image is so hideous to behold.

But when it comes down to it, the capsule hotel was actually pretty darn comfortable. Sleeping in a capsule is only slightly like how I imagine being dead in a coffin feels like, the major difference being you have a TV and a drunk Japanese guy snoring 5 inches away from you in another capsule. I imagine masturbating is problematic (not when you are dead, I mean in the capsule. You can’t masturbate whilst dead) seeing as it would just take a medium scale orgasmic jolt to bring an entire rack of capsules crashing down on top of you in a cascade of Hawaiian shirt, bedding and tentacle-porn-watching salarymen.

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 26th, 2003 at 6:21 pm and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.