153 Comments
- nixonrichard, on 10/12/2007, -1/+139I stayed in one of these while I was there. First, they are not a replacement for hotels, they are a convenience for people traveling overnight on trains (like reclining sleeper seats in first class on a plane). At the place I stayed there was a little red button next to the TV . . . this was the button for porn. I didn't want to spend $20 for porn on a 9" screen, but some of the people around me did . . . I wish they hadn't. You're stuck in a tiny box all night long listening to the people around you masturbating. This is something that is probably not easily conveyed in pictures and they probably don't mention it in the brochure.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -5/+865th Element. Totally
- EsotericBoredom, on 10/12/2007, -1/+44How many drinks would it take to convince a woman that coming back to your capsule would be like doing it in the space station?
- turbodigg, on 10/12/2007, -1/+44Multipass?
- azzageddi, on 10/12/2007, -1/+38I stayed in a capsule hotel once. Not bad. Remember that the capsule is not everything. The place I stayed had two decent, cheap restaurants, an internet cafe, a couple of communal TV rooms for people who didn't want to watch the tiny screen in their capsule, and a fantastic public bath. I spent more than an hour in the latter. Very clean, with good showers to clean you off before you go soak in several large pools, each with different temperatures, so you can soak in the hottest one for awhile, then cool off gradually in the others. There was also a sauna, and you could pay for a massage.
The women's section was separate from the men's--they only mingled in the restaurants. - anarchistuk, on 08/11/2009, -2/+39Let's not pussyfoot around, the question we all want to ask.
Is it possible to have sex in one of these? - MrBabyMan, on 10/12/2007, -0/+34A different gallery of pics and a great article here:
http://www.yesicanusechopsticks.com/capsule/ - goldfenix, on 10/12/2007, -0/+33I also stayed in one of those during my time in Japan. Only did it once though. And I'm happy to report that my experience, while bad, was not as bad as Mr. NixonRichard's above.
First off, you cannot be clastraphobic in the least. They are small, but I could sit upright just fine in them at 5'10". There are usually lockers in a nearby area for storing anything else you have brought along.
The bad part at my place was that I quickly realized that drunken businessmen who missed the train were stumbling into the capsules near me all the way until about 3:00 a.m. And they were not quiet about it. Then, at about 5:30 a.m., their alarm clocks started going off, and I think many of them were still drunk enough that they didn't actually *know* the alarm clocks were going off, so there'd be a timeframe of about 10 minutes between the alarm starting and it finally getting shut off.
As for bathing, on the next floor above the capsules they had an area with a communal bath, which is quite common in Japan. So, imagine if you would, about 15 groggy, slightly drunk Japanese businessmen all sitting naked in the communal hottub when in walks in a 5'10" whiter-than-white 22 year old American, holding a washcloth in front of him nervously.
Japanese, to their credit, are very good about making it appear that they aren't really staring at you.
Another thing I noted is that they sold pre-ironed shirts downstairs that you could buy for about 2000-3000 yen. (20-30 dollars) This would allow a person to essentially change clothes and everything at one of these places. Very, very efficient, but one of the worst nights of sleep I've had in my life.
Later that day, however, I did get a few hours sleep in a nearby park.
Edit: I also feel I should say that, as others have mentioned, these places are quite frequently men only. Probably at least partially due to the lack of any bathing areas for the women. - adcat, on 10/12/2007, -1/+33Except without a hot red-haired alien bunkmate...
- evilpig, on 10/12/2007, -7/+38Uhh, thats kind of expensive to sleep in a box for a night.
- benijuana, on 10/12/2007, -2/+33do they plug you into the matrix when you're sleeping?
- tidu, on 10/12/2007, -1/+31Definately beats sleeping in your 1999 honda accord coupe. :-/
- idandfei, on 10/12/2007, -1/+27Not in Japan. That's extremely reasonable. New DVDs cost about $40. So if you watch a movie on that tiny TV you're coming out ahead.
- 35chililights, on 10/12/2007, -1/+27auto wash.
- ffttoteof, on 10/12/2007, -1/+27I have stayed in one of these. They are not all as nice as what the article describes. Where I stayed was horrible.
It was 2002 and I was in Japan with my girlfriend. She went off to the country to visit her old host-family from when she was an exchange student, and I had a night to myself in Tokyo. Roppongi is the district where foreigners and japanese businessmen go for sleazy fun. Just walk down the street and there are doormen at every club enticing you in. They're all hostess clubs, where you pay girls to _sit and converse with you_. Some are full of Japanese girls, some are full of foreign girls. Some of them also have a stage for stripping.
The doorman at one of them offered all-you-can-drink for an hour for what was about the equivalent of $20. Anything you want from the bar. "Damn," I thought, "I can get my money's worth there!" So I headed in and got down to some drinkin'.
Two hours later, I'm no longer sure how much I managed to get down. But it was a lot. Then I realized I had no place to sleep, and the trains weren't running anymore. "No problem!" I thought. "I'll just stay in one of those cool Japanese capsule hotels!" Only problem was, I had no idea where one was.
I found some group of drunk businessmen and asked them if they knew. They spoke enough English that eventually they understood my question, and told me that in this neighborhood there weren't so many of them, but they did know of one and it just so happened they were on their way there, and I could come with them. What luck! So they take me to this building, and we get in the elevator and head to the 7th floor, and hey! There's the capsule hotel. We all take off our shoes at the door, and walk up to the desk.
The men check in, but when it's my turn, the desk clerk speaks no English. When I make it clear I don't understand Japanese, he holds up a sign written in English explaining that this hotel is for Japanese people only, and foreigners are not allowed to stay there. Yeah, needless to say I felt a little like dirt. So dejectedly I go back to the door to put on my shoes and make an exit. One of the businessmen with whom I arrived asked me if I'd be OK. I told him sure, I'd figure something out.
And here's where it gets real bad.
By the door they had this large ancient-Greek style statue. As I was putting on my shoes -- quite drunk, mind you -- I suddenly lose my balance and fall face-forward directly into the statue, knocking it over onto the floor, where it shattered into a million pieces. Oh *****. I considered running away, but then I was worried the desk clerk would think I intentionally smashed his statue on purpose out of anger at being kicked out of the hotel. My motivation wasn't honesty, or anything; it was just that I didn't want them to think I did it in retaliation for their stupid rule. I was drunk.
The desk clerk ran over, and I held out my arms in the universal "Sorry about that!" gesture. He ran off and found the one person who worked at the hotel who spoke good English -- the teenage towel-boy from the shower room. I told him I'd pay for the statue, and he said they didn't know how much it cost, but the owner did, and he'd be back in the morning and that, under the circumstances, maybe I should sleep at the hotel after all. I was agreeable to pretty much anything at this point.
They gave me a towel and a robe, and assigned me a cube to sleep in. I hit the shower room, and then put my clothes back on as the robe was too small. I Went to my cube, expecting it to be cool and futuristic, like the ones in this article, but it wasn't. It had a curtain for a door, and an uncomfortable mat inside. Not only was the cube poorly ventilated, the room the cubes were in was poorly ventilated. It was about a thousand degrees in there. Anyone who's been to a department store in Japan knows how they keep the heat cranked up to an uncomfortably hot temperature. This was even hotter. There was no sound insulation; all around me I heard drunk businessmen snoring. It was so uncomfortable I didn't sleep a wink all night. After six hours or so, I just got up and went to the lounge where there was a TV, and drank water.
In the morning, the owner still hadn't shown up. I told them at the desk that I had to leave, but I'd be back. The first thing I did when I left was check into a normal hotel. As I was checking in, I started to get itchy. Real itchy.
In the hotel, all I wanted to do was sleep, but when I got to my room and gave myself the once-over, I noticed red bumps all over me. Crap. Flea bites. Yes, I got fleas from the capsule. By this time I was so itchy it was making me crazy, and of course the more I scratched the more I itched. And by this time, I had changed my clothes, so the original flea-infested clothing was now in my suitcase with all the rest of my clothing. I called reception and asked them if they had a laundry service. They did. I asked if someone could please come get my laundry to wash it. I took off my clothes, put them in my suitcase, and when someone arrived I opened the door a crack and handed him my entire suitcase. Then I showered, and then I slept, and hung out naked in my room until they came back with my laundry hours later.
I went back to the capsule hotel later that day. The statue wound up being very expensive. I don't know if they were fleecing me or not. I thought about arguing that they should have some kind of insurance to cover it, but figured that would be a little too difficult to discuss in the towel boy's good but not _that_ good English. And also, Christ, I'd feel like a jerk if I stumbled into their establishment drunk, smashed their statue, and then refused to pay for it. - idandfei, on 10/12/2007, -3/+28Looks like a morgue from the '60s. I haven't actually stayed in one of these yet.
I have stayed at a hotel near Narita Airport where the rooms are so small that when you open the door it hits the bed. Then you have to stand on the bed to close the door. They charged 15,000 yen for that room (roughly $135-140). It didn't even have a TV and the alarm clock was broken causing me to nearly miss my flight.
Moral of story: This probably is NOT the worst choice for accommodations. The Love Hotels are really nice though. - dafreshfish, on 10/12/2007, -1/+23Most people who work in Tokyo don't live in Tokyo, and they spend a minimum of 1 hour each way to ride the bus/trains/subway to get to work. All public transit ends at midnight, so if you go out drinking with your colleagues and don't make the last train, you're confronted with a tough decision. Either pay $100+ to take a taxi home, or stay in a capsule hotel. The next best option is to stay out all night drinking & eating ramen and take the first train home at 5:00am...
- scoot87, on 10/12/2007, -7/+27I remember seeing this on the Amazing Race. This is what happens when you have tens of millions of people living on one small area of land, real estate is the most valuable commodity.
- jeh0753, on 10/12/2007, -2/+22Wow...according to this article there is a big red porn button in each capsule....I'd be afraid of whats on the ceilings....
- shirosamurai, on 10/12/2007, -0/+19@ashlvsya, BGFeltenink
Nope. 99% of these place only rent rooms out to men. Why? Not sure, never bothered to find out. Not to mention if you had sex in one of those, all 60 of your bedside neighbors will get to hear you going at it too. Besides, if you're hooking up with a girl in Japan, love hotels are the only place you're going to. - drgnpaladin, on 10/12/2007, -2/+20Did anyone else think Neuromancer?
- pauleku, on 10/12/2007, -0/+18I cant be the only person to at first glance think of a dog kennel / animal hotel. They look JUST like that.
- KyjL, on 10/12/2007, -0/+16Supergreen.
- diulei, on 10/12/2007, -0/+16A few thousand yen ($30-$50) for a night is actually a bargain considering how much taxis cost. Trains and subways stop around midnight, so if you drank the night away and missed it, it's easier on the wallet to pay for a capsule hotel than to shell out probably twice as much to get home.
Oh, and they do have showers, etc. too. - idandfei, on 10/12/2007, -0/+15*****, they're frequented by salary men. Yakuza stay at high-end hotels or love hotels.
- rukki, on 10/12/2007, -2/+16What the hell? Do you write copy for MGM or something?
- shirosamurai, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10@idandfei
Wow, you got jacked. Don't stay near Narita - the closeness to the airport does not make up for the quality/price of the hotels. Hop on a train to Chiba, not too far from Narita - you can get a hotel room for half the price you listed, and decently sized too (still small, but remember, this is Japan..) - endlessoul, on 10/12/2007, -0/+10Heh. I'm browsing the pics and I catch the map:
"Ignore the red box. I stole the map."
Priceless. - vuke69, on 10/12/2007, -2/+12They are usually for men only, but hey, whatever floats your boat.
- idigital, on 10/12/2007, -2/+12It's similar because Fifth Element is inspired by the capsule hotels, they've been around for a long time.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+12that almost looks like the tubes in 5th element when they're going to the spaceliner... so much so that it could have been filmed at this place..
- theoristbj, on 10/12/2007, -1/+11They usually wouldn't let in people with tattoos (Yakuza almost always have some tats) into capsule hotels.
Since Japs are so polite, they won't say "no Yakuza" allowed, rather they'll say "no people with tattoos" as that is less confrontational. Gets rid of unwanted elements without having to specify anything. - ebrandsberg, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9Personally, I would love this type of thing behind security at the airport when I'm traveling. To be able to kick back for a few bucks and sleep, then say have an alarm sound based on my flight schedule (so if a plane is delayed, they delay the alarm) would be awsome.
- CJUNIT, on 10/12/2007, -0/+9Dude, exactly what came to mind! I just hope they render you unconscious for the duration of your intergalactic space flight, err... stay!
- UglyShirts, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10I'm 6'5". I'm thinking I'd have to spring for slightly roomier accommodations.
- idigital, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10Urgh. See. The reason it's like descriptions in William Gibson's work is because he based it on these, they've been around for a long time.
- Hindu_Wardrobe, on 10/12/2007, -1/+10Sucks for claustrophobics...
- idandfei, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8@shirosamurai: That hotel stay is definately not something I plan to repeat. I can't remember the circumstances 100% as it happened years ago, but I think that I used the airline that cancelled my flight to book the hotel. I was headed to the states on a (rare) business trip and wasn't real in touch with how Japan worked. I've now been here for about 14 years and know never to attempt that again.
- Guspaz, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8So? It still invokes the memory. The first thing I thought when I saw the pictures was "Cool, Neuromancer."
The second thought was "How would those flimsy door screens stop the noise?"
I'm a very light sleeper. - diulei, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9That's what the love hotels are for, man. $30 would probably get you around 1.5 hours or so, and those things have themes, entertainment, and vending machines with... accessories...
- orca94, on 10/12/2007, -0/+8There's a really awesome capsule hotel in Fukoka. Hotel Cabinas, high quality stuff. Fairly luxury for 40 bucks a night with a private capsule room, and an awesome onsen. The lobby looks like something you'd find at a 4-5 star hotel. Or you could just do what my traveling companions did during golden week, sleep on the street. Japan has very little crime to worry about.
- failure2respond, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9I don't think I would fit
- Asianwaste, on 10/12/2007, -1/+8Why bother? They are small enough. Though the only real difference in size is the price.
If you ever go to Roppongi in Japan, stay away from some of the hotels there. I went to this one called Hotel Ibis at 6 AM. I'm dragging my boys who are piss drunk and barely able to stand. They give me a room for $200. The room itself was no bigger than a walk in closet that managed to fit a bed for 2 (mind you that size is very relative. To US standards it's a bed for a 5 year old), a mini dresser, a mini fridge, and a mini tv. There was just enough floor for someone to stand in.
The best part was when I checked out of the hotel at 12:30. They charged me another day because check out time was at 12. So I ended up paying $300 bucks for 6 hours in a closet. So the next day I set ***** the hotel and found myself a 24 hour internet cafe that even had reclining seats and cotton blankets with a public bathroom and snack bar. Place was quiet as a mouse too. What more can I ask? I was charged 75 yen on the hour. Sleeping a full 8 hours was only about 6 bucks. If you do the math, you can theoretically sleep there 11 days and still pay less than you would at those opportunist Japanese tourist traps.
I'd also rather sleep at that cafe than a coffin. - jmann, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7I slept in quite a few capsules during my time in Japan (Shibuya for 3,600 yen a night, can't beat that!) and let me tell you, those things turn into sweat boxes about 10:00 AM! And for anyone considering staying in one, if you can't sleep with people snoring, you might want to try somewhere else. :P
- idandfei, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7@YUKEVSTER: Uh, I take it that you have never been to Tokyo. It is easily the most expensive city in the world.
- illt, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6you can see kids laying in those exact same ones (well looks like it) in the film baraka.
baraka's a fantastic filmy, it really lets you take a step back and look at how diverse and strange human societies are. - saska, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7You reflect poorly on our military.
- idandfei, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6Don't know why people are digging you down. It's a true statement. Anybody who works in Tokyo has experienced that situation at least once. The only people who don't have to worry about it are rich enough to live in Tokyo even with their absurd apartment prices, and they would probably just stay at a fancy hotel.
- madtinkerer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5I've stayed in them before, too. If you shop around, so you find normal hotels for about the same price. One piece of advice though - they are terrible places to sleep off a hangover. They don't have the greatest ventilation and tough to get out of in a hurry if you're not too co-ordinated. Not all of them have the red porn button, but it is pretty common. Just think of it as part of the Japanese experience. You can stay in these for a few nights so you can afford a really good ryokan before you finish your trip.
- ornellasm, on 10/12/2007, -0/+5I remember staying at a ryokan in Kyoto for less than 20 a night, and my friends stayed at a hostel in Tokyo for 10....
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