Love Hotel & Returning Home
Wednesday, February 14th, 2007Wednesday 14th February 2007 (20th – 21st December 2006)
I had a look in the diary that I wrote by pen while I was away. On the 21st December my opening line is, “Ok, so I’m still in Japan.” Yep I’m afraid you know, I do like to keep things exciting but it hadn’t been on my agenda to confuse even myself and return a day later than expected. All will be revealed below:
On the 19th Janine and I headed over to Hino O where there were loads of young people milling around. Its a city that is vibrant with colourful flashing lights and people. I mean there are people everywhere. We had dinner there, pointing again at delicious looking food in pictures, and then went to Asakusa to find a love hotel.
Now, I must explain what a love hotel is. In Tokyo there are loads of young people who live with their parents who have boyfriends/girlfriends. As it has become so popular for young people to remain at home with thier parents to maximise what thier money can do for them, love hotels have been set up where you can get a room by the hour or for consecutive nights and you dont even need to see or speak to a person to do this. Some love hotels are easy to spot, bright neon lights speak volumes, but others are more sedated and you wouldnt even know it was a hotel you are peeking into aside from the board outside displaying the rates. It is actaully cheaper to stay in a love hotel than a regular hotel. Janine and I thought – why not.
We found this flashing and changing colour building and eventually plucked up the courage to enter. It feels a bit like entering Anne Summers for the first time or a sex shop or something. I mean you know there is nothing wrong with it, it just feels a bit odd. Inside there was noone there. At the side of the downstairs area were pictures (pictures – these were now my friends in Japan) lit up of the rooms available, with the prices below. Janine found the one that was the cheapest and touched the picture. Before we knew it a ticket had been released with a number on it. We are both now standing in this love hotel completely clueless. We wander around and suddenly a door opens, a lift. We get in and are transported (i use that word because it is out of this world) to our room. The room door is open, we have no key) and as we enter you can hear music playing. There is a machine to your left, a door to your right and in front. I press some sort of button on the machine as it is shouting at me and a card drops out of the machine. I leave it there. I enter the door in front of me and the room is unbelievable. So much so that I probably wont do it justice.
The room has a hair dryer, straightners, all sorts of body lotions, shampoos, conditioners, body wash, towels galore, dressing gowns, slippers, soaps etc. It has a wide screen TV with a DVD player and about a million channels. You could stay up watching japanese porn all night if you wanted to. You could stay up all night watching movies all night – you can choose from a massive collection. There are two fridges, there is a playstation and two controllers, a phone, you can buy stuff out of the minibar which doesnt just contain drinks and snacks but condoms and vibrators too. It’s mad. The toilet is one just like the one I experienced in the Sony Centre which I wrote about previously. Totally unbelievable. When I got into bed I noticed that there were various controls attached to it. This was weird so I pressed a few. Well, the bed started moving this way and that…I’m not joking it was hillarious. The bed even vibrated at different strengths and speeds. We had a radio, alarmclock and music player and it took us ages to figure out the lights. Once we had got most of them off we noticed that glowing all around the room were figures of the karma sutra – oh my oh my!!!! There is more but im sure it already sounds like ive made it up so i’ll stop.
After spending the night in this strange room we got up. I was first up and ready to go get on that train to the airport. I went to pay for our room via the machine but it wouldnt accept my credit card. I had no cash on me as I had had my bank card stolen in Thailand. After a little hassel and realising that it wouldnt accept any cards, Japan is so hi-tech it doesnt appreciate an international credit card, Janine had to rush out and get some cash. I waited and waited and waited. At 9.00am I was a little concerned as our flight was at midday.
About ten minutes later she arrives with the cash, we pay the machine and leave. Janine had found two different cash points but they wouldnt accept her card. She ended up having to go to the post office but had to wait until they opened at 9.00am to do this. We got to the station, eventually found our lockers with our bags in and retrieved our stuff. This took longer than expected as the station is huge. Loaded with all our bags we tried to get to the correct part of the station to catch the train to the airport. That is easier said than done. Directions to places in Tokyo are few and far between and, probably quite rightly, there are hardly any signs in English. We hadnt a clue where we were going. Once we had found the right place I asked the ticket man if I could pay by card for the tickets to the airport. No. I look to Janine to start doling out the cash but she said she only got enough out for the room. She has to run back to the post office where there is by now a queue. Loving Japan at this point. Im left getting more and more stressed. She reappears, we pay for our tickets, we jump on a train and then jump off the train, change train (of course there is no direct train – that would be asking too much) and when we get to the train station, the officials there want to look inside my rucksack and it’s at this point im looking up to the heavens and wondering if there really is a God and if there is what is he doing? We run like mad to the virgin check in desk but it has closed.
Despite checking in online, turning up fifteen minutes before the flight is due to take off is not acceptable. Fair enough. They book us on the next flight. Same time the next day. We sit down. I catch my breath and moan a bit. We wait. I want to phone my parents but it’s too early in the morning and they will be asleep. I phone them just before 6am their time and burst into tears. I have no idea why. I think i had just prepared myself to come home and with all the stress of rushing about it had all go too much and when I cried, I cried. I don’t cry very much really, but I was bawling. I had to go to the toilet. What made matters worse was that I ran out of money half way through and had to get some more money to ring back – pathetic. After about half an hour I was fine.
That day consisted of reading, sitting, waiting, reading, wandering around the airport and then figuring out that we couldnt sleep in the airport because it shuts at midnight and they would turf us out – greeeeeeeeeeeeeat! Just loving Japan! We ended up getting a shuttle to a nearby hotel and staying there for the night. We rounded off Tokyo with some sake in the downstairs bar. Warm and yuk – it does grow on you after about one or two glasses.
I did return home eventually. It’s good to be back!
georgiebees