Yongfook is a web producer and usability consultant based in Tokyo

Well my birthday has come and gone in an altogether completely unspectacular way.

With a heavy, disgusted sigh of self loathing, I awoke on April 12th realising that I was now 24, and reflected for a moment on how my present situation of lying on the musky, heavily-sexed (by other people) bed of a dank love hotel in northern Kumamoto contrasted quite starkly with the memory of me waking up on the same date maybe 15 years ago in my house in England, to the sight of many large presents all possibly containing some kind of awesome M.A.S.K. toy.

Which brings me to one of only 2 events really worth mentioning in the past week (other than the fact my beloved girlfriend came to visit yes yes I love you blah blah SHUT UP BACK IN YOUR BOX) - I have now stayed in a LOVE HOTEL.

Love hotels, amongst other, less convincing reasons, exist largely to facilitate infidelity, of which it is widely accepted that Japan is the ultimate grand champion of the world, ever. Not that I am saying people don’t cheat on their wives or girlfriends in the western world, but the degree to which it is tolerated in this country is shocking to someone whose prudent Catholic upbringing causes him to feel guilt at the slightest thing, like jumping impatiently to a shorter queue at the supermarket checkout or clubbing baby seals to death using a bat made out of another baby seal, just to be amused at the irony.

The average love hotel will have 2 different price rates. One will be a ‘rest’ rate (the ‘FRICK ME NOW!’ rate), in which you pay for just a couple of hours’ stay. The other will be the more expensive overnight rate, usually meaning around 10pm to noon the next morning. The overnight rate for a love hotel is often cheaper than a regular hotel.

You are always able to discern a love hotel from other, more reputable establishments, in the way that they are invariably bathed in multi-coloured neon glow emanating from the giant electronic decorations usually in the shape of a palm tree / heart / pineapple / pair of lips / other generic iconic symbol that gives off connotations of a sexual and / or tropical nature.

Love hotels usually require no actual contact with a staff member for you to check into your room - a boon for increasing the status quo of absolute anonymity which is pretty much a prerequisite when you are a 50 year old married man humping your eager young intern blind every Wednesday evening. Everything is either vending machine-ised (insert money, press desired room button, get key) or functions around one of those archaic vacuum tube systems in which you walk into your room and put money into a capsule, which gets whisked off (I want to say ’sucked’ but that would be the worst pun EVER) to an unseen member of staff (who will promptly send the capsule back with your change).

Most love hotels have furnishings FAR in advance of regular hotels. The room we stayed at, although housed in a building looking like some kind of decrepit third-world nuclear emergency bunker, came equipped with a big TV, a DVD player, a jacuzzi AND a regular bath and shower, a HUGE projector screen (which covered one whole wall) and projector (connected to the DVD system), a gigantic winnie the pooh doll in a santa costume, a sofa, and bizarrely, a slot machine. Oh and a big bed.

And a black light.

It was like staying at a much more expensive hotel only with some minorly obtrusive flaws like peeling wallpaper, the nagging smell of another man’s aftershave and the constant suspicion that, since we never see the staff, are there actually any staff, and do they clean the spunk off the sheets or simply let it dry.

Anyway, the other event worth mentioning was the totally awesome Nobuo Uematsu Final Fantasy concert I went to see in Fukuoka. Cheryl, bless her soul, sat quietly smiling out of politeness, never really understanding the sheer WEIGHT OF IMPORTANCE of the concert - despite my constant inanely grinning cries of exclaim along the lines of “this is the classic title theme music from FF1 this is fricking awesoooome!!111″ and thumping her knee with my fist in uncontrollable excitement - seeing as she was never much of a video game fan. For those who care, the programme was as follows:

Opening Mission - FF7 Zanarkand - FFX Ronfaure - FFXI Aeris’ Theme - FF7 The Oath - FF8 You Are Not Alone - FF9

Medley - FF5 Main Theme - FF7 Love Theme - FF4 Medley - FF1 - FF3 Opera “Maria and Draco” - FF6

With Nobuo Uematsu HIMSELF appearing on stage in between songs to do a little talking. It was a truly beautiful, emotionally uplifting, and yet satisfyingly geeky event that I will probably treasure for a long time to come. From the solemn oboe solo at the start of “The Oath” to the tinkling, lullaby-esque opening to “Aeris’ Theme”, the renditions of all the great Final Fantasy themes were given so much depth and life by the Fukuoka Symphony Orchestra, I was EJACULATING PURE SALT by the end of it all. It was something that I will probably never ever get the chance to see again and am absolutely thrilled to have had the chance to experience. Best concert for the next 5 years.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 19th, 2004 at 8:24 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.