I had heard of these so-called capsule hotels, where instead of a room you get a box to sleep in. I'd imagined they were like dresser drawers, which you pull out, lay down in, shut and are then enveloped in darkness with only an opening near your nose so you don't suffocate.
I bravely booked three different capsules for my first five nights in Japan, with just one night's break staying on a friend's couch in Yokohama.
The lobby of the first capsule looked disappointingly a lot like other backpacker's hostels. It was cheerfully lit, the walls were covered with photos of guests, postcards, and drawings. The other guests seemed to be from all over, and I heard more English than Japanese being spoken in the common room and the hallways. The receptionists spoke to me in English from the beginning, and I didn't try to subject them to my broken Japanese.
There were still some surprises. The first was the shoe locker. When I stepped into the foyer, barely big enough for me and my suitcase, a sign asked me to take off my shoes and store them in a locker. This became the ritual in all the hotels: when arriving, I locked up my shoes.
The hostel had five floors: The lobby was on the second floor. The first, third, and fourth floors held the capsules -- male-only, mixed, and female-only, respectively. The fifth floor was for showers and laundry. The capsules were numbered and arranged in long, double-decker rows. Finding the one that matched my number in the upper level, I climbed a short ladder and went inside. It was bigger than I expected, tall enough to sit up straight. Near the head of the bed was a control panel full of buttons and a clock, and a TV hung from the ceiling in front of my face when I lay down. Unfortunately, the mechanics seemed to have been decommissioned -- the only button that actually did anything was the light switch.
The next day I visited my friends Dora and Jun in Yokohama. We went to the upscale Minatomirai area, which was Japan's only open port for a long time, and home to Japan's first railway. A lot of the land around the harbor used to be water and was filled in, according to Jun.
We went to a conveyor belt sushi restaurant, where the chefs were showing off a whole tuna they had caught or bought that morning. After we sat down, they carried the tuna into the middle of the open kitchen and one chef ceremoniously dissected it, everyone shouting "maguro!" whenever he dislodged a piece. When this happened, everyone in the restaurant played rock-paper-scissors, and the winners got free slices of fish flesh.
Pictures of Yokohama
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The next capsule hotel was tucked down an alley near the train tracks in what I later learned was Tokyo's red light district. Jun said my room mates would probably all be Japanese businessmen who had missed the last train home.
The lobby was more austere than the first, a bit like a motel. The receptionist's eyes widened slightly when she saw me. I took off my shoes and stuffed them in a locker, and gave her my passport. She found my reservation, gave me a stack of maroon pajamas -- with the word "sauna" embroidered on the front -- a laminated breakfast ticket, and a locker key with a band to wear around my wrist, took my shoe key, and went over what sounded like the house rules in rapid Japanese. I nodded as she spoke, catching a word here and there.
She finished and looked at me expectantly. Worried I'd missed something important, I told her I hadn't understood. Her eyes narrowed to a scowl. From then on she spoke to me in an exaggerated voice, which succeeded in expressing both that she thought I was an idiot and that she resented having to deal with me, but somehow didn't make her any easier to understand.
The other guests were indeed all middle-aged men, who walked around wearing the maroon pajamas. In the basement was a bath, a massage place, and a room full of lounge chairs, half of which were full of sleeping men. The floors were not divided by gender like the first hotel, and the bathroom had both male and female symbols on the front, but the only woman I saw during my stay there was the receptionist.
I put my things in my locker and was ready to go out for the day. I asked the receptionist for my shoe key back, which she gave to me only in exchange for my locker key. I tried to think of a good reason to not let guests have two keys at once or leave with their locker key, but couldn't.
The third capsule hotel was at Narita Airport. It was decorated like a space station or a futuristic prison: everything was clean gray, white, and black, and icons were favored everywhere over words. Instead of maroon pajamas, I was given a gray gown with "9hours" (the name of the hotel) stitched on the front. The reception was a small room without decorations; on the left was a door to the male side, on the right a door to the female side. The capsules were set in one long, dark hallway stretching off into the distance. The clientele included more international travelers and fewer snoring businessmen. There was a strict "no food or drink" policy, though we were welcome to go stand outside in the cold and drink a chilled drink from the vending machine there.
Food section
Fermented
Nattoburger. The bun is made from fried tofu. The thing that looks sort of like pâté in the top right corner is "tofu cheese".
Clockwise from top: Pickled radish and carrot, grilled scallions with miso, eggs and mushrooms, pickled konjac and burdock. Center: Pickled greens.
From left: Sashimi wrapped in some kind of chewy leaf-like thing, tamagoyaki (egg mixed with soy sauce or soup stock, turned repeatedly while it's cooked so it ends up having layers like a millefeuille), craft beer made from red rice. Top left: Hands of my friend Hide, who took me here.
Seafood
Fried fish bones.
Tuna croquettes.
Sashimi platter and knife-wielding chef.
Yellowtail head nitsuke (simmered in sweet broth)
