Tokyo capsule hotel

In a Seinfeld episode, I had seen the cupboard like spaces in which the Japanese tourists had spend the night. The capsule hotels in Japan, in my instant, in Tokyo gave me a similar experience.

I was in Tokyo at 9 PM and wanted a place to spend the night before leaving for my pilgrimage to Shikoku. I found there was a very cheap hotel close by which was a $26 a night capsule hotel. I decided to try it out.

I walked to the location and there were cops outside. However, a tourist who looked like an American assured me that it was a legit place.

As soon as you enter, you need to remove your shoes and put them in the cubby. Then give the cubby key to the front desk.

The clerk takes your money and gives you another key which you take and go in the elevator. This place had 16 capsules on each floor and about eight floors of them.

Once on my floor, I found that the capsules were very small coffin boxes stacked on top of each other. Each box had a retractable, flexible door. Inside was a very small TV, light switch, mattress, pillow, sheets, and one power outlet.

The space was not claustrophobic for me. There was 6 inches of headroom when I was sitting down on the mattress comfortably.

The capsule was made of thick plastic. Anytime you inadvertently touched or hit it, it made a noise and disturbed everybody in the crammed space. You could literally hear the neighbor breathing.

Privacy was hard to find. There were wash basins in public view, and you needed to dress decently to get out of the capsule to wash or brush.

The shower was in the basement. There was a locker with things you could use, like a tunic, towel or toothbrush.

The shower was shared too. It had really hot and high pressure water as well as a hot water tub. Generous amounts of body soap and shampoo gel were present. The shower was pleasant, if you did not mind another man showering next to you. Best to go really early in the morning when nobody else has woken up.

After getting ready early in the morning, I was ready to get going on my pilgrimage. Just outside the capsule, I discovered that I had lost the first item of the trip, the hat that I needed to cover my bald head.

As a last ditch check, I went back to the capsule and found it underneath the pillow. Disaster adverted.

Checking out was easy. Gave the clerk the capsule key, and he gave me the key to the cubby to retrieve my shoes. Donning my shoes, I was off.