Somehow I haven’t been Japan yet! Time to change that! I suppose it’s expensive by my usual travel standards but with the dollar being so strong right now, and it being low season, and Japan finally re-opening just six weeks earlier I decided it’s time for a new experience. Plus everyone seems to love Japan. First I visited my sister in Seattle, who shockingly had already beat me to Japan a few years ago, and then two days later I was on a 10 hour flight to Tokyo, which was a relative breeze compared to the 15 hours it usually takes me to get to Asia via Hong Kong or Shanghai from Chicago. No delays whatsoever, I landed in Tokyo Narita in no time. Although Narita really is in the middle of nowhere so it was a long (but no stress) train into the city. I had booked a men’s capsule hotel for the first three nights that just two blocks away from Shinjuku station, one of the major hubs in the city.
Having never been to a capsule hotel before, the whole process was quite interesting; it was explained to me in some very broken English and with a pamphlet. They love their pamphlets in Japan. It was a good thing I’d read enough reviews online to get the idea of what’s going on. You don’t take any of your luggage upstairs, you store your clothes and valuables in a locker and they give you a yukata to wear, basically a robe plus drawstring pants and slippers. Everyone wears these all throughout the ‘hotel’. If you have big luggage it get stashed on top of the lockers, out in the open, free for anyone to take or rifle through! You just have to trust that nothing will happen to it. Which it won’t, because Japan! Heading up to the next floor is the spa area, which has an artificial hot spring and sauna as well as washing stations, which are done sitting down on a stool. Hmm. There’s no curtains or dividers or anything and of course everyone is butt naked, as to be expected in Japan. Get used to it!
The next floor up is the cafe/lounge area, where they have free soft drinks, coffee, miso soup, and rice + raw eggs. I had to spy on other people, but you crack the egg and mix it in thoroughly with the rice, add in some soy sauce and crunchy stuff, and there’s your snack! And yes, I guess that eating raw eggs is super common in Japan, they have high standards for their egg safety apparently! There is also free booze from 6-12pm and hundreds of anime books if you want something to peruse. Some being a bit risqué, but it is an all men’s place! Then there’s the capsules on the top floors, basically a big room lined with individual sleeping pods, either on ground level or higher up, about shoulder level. These ones didn’t have doors that close, just curtains for privacy for each pod. The pods all have outlets for charging, a light, and a mini fan. Basically a slightly improved hostel dorm bed setup.
The toilets are also worth talking about, as when you open the stall door, the lid opens up for you! How welcoming. And then when your butt hits the seat you will satisfactorily notice a slight warming sensation. Heated seats too! Each toilet also has full bidet options, where you can control the stream and water pressure aimed at your bum. It kinda tickles! There’s also a flushing noises button in case you’re making too many loud awkward noises that you’d like to disguise without actually flushing! Just great stuff all around. The Japanese really have done all they can to make pooping a more enjoyable experience. And this is one of the joys of traveling in Japan, very high standard of living but with so many little (and often better) differences from the West.
So with this hotel setup it felt annoying at first having almost all of your stuff downstairs in a locker, but once I had my toiletries and chargers and stuff in my cube I started to come around on the idea. And I must admit, I did enjoy being able to have a long day out around town and then be able to come back and get into the pajama clothes and then hop right into the spa. The problem was getting motivated to put back on my regular clothes to go out again at night!
And Shinjuku is definitely a place you want to go out at night! My place was just a few blocks away from Kabukicho, the main nightlife district, filled with the bright lights, clubs, arcades, and more. Any movies that involve after dark scenes in Tokyo are usually set in this area. It’s an iconic spot and good place for a first timer in the Tokyo! Of course I was running on fumes from my 10 hour flight, but I had to eat something so it was off into the neon lit streets of Kapukicho.
The first thing I noticed about Tokyo, is it does not cater as well as thought to English speakers. Checking into the hotel was not particularly straightforward. On the streets every single place with advertisements, drink specials, or food menus out front was all Japanese, almost no English. I was also expecting more foreigners to be around, and I’d spot some here or there, but we were certainly in a small minority. Not that I cared, I was just enjoying walking around. I stepped through arcade, which I guess was multiple floors, and it was packed with people staring at screens and pushing buttons, beeping, whirring, and chiming. Next door was a claw machine place where you stick in some coins and try to snack the cute stuffed animal. It looked impossible as far as I could tell.
One thing I liked was how small and unique so many of the places seemed to be. Lots of the bars and restaurants were very narrow strips with mostly bar seating and maybe a few two person tables. Nothing exemplifies this more than the Golden Gai section of Shinjuku, which is a mass collection of sardine can bars all jammed in next to and on top of one another. It’s a very cool spot. But it seemed kind of intimidating to me, not knowing any Japanese, to stop in such a small and intimate setting! I’d pop in another night.
One of the alleys at Golden Gai
famous street called Drunkard’s Alley
Kabukicho is apparently Tokyo’s biggest red light district, but I read it’s been cleaned up a lot from the past - or at least outwardly. There’s very little signs of it on the streets, but as with many things in Japan, there’s more than meets the eye. I did notice that the Japanese seem to have a fondness for privacy, so many establishments didn’t have windows or views inside, you really have no idea what is happening behind closed doors. I heard that lots of the businesses are also run by the Yakuza, so you don’t want to be pissing off any of the wrong people!
After a bit more wandering and snapping a few photos here and there – it’s a great place for street photography – I really needed something in my stomach. So eventually I found a busy ramen place with bar seating and pictures on the menu so in no time I was slurping down some noodles in a rich creamy pork broth, listening to others doing the same. The Japanese may be very polite and respectful in general, but those type of manners do not apply when sucking down noodles, it seems to be encouraged to be as loud and obnoxious as possible! I paid the bill, which was about $8 and it was back off to the hotel to crash.