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[JimDunlop2]

Veni Vidi Vici - (We came, we saw, we conquered).

Thank you first of all to the people who responded to my posting a couple weeks ago asking for advice on the Love Hotel experience in Japan. So I thought I would report back to you all with our experience.

To make a long story short, I did some looking around on the Internet, and found a lot! Unfortunately, not only was it mostly in Japanese, it wasn't also very helpful to what we were looking for. For those of you who are looking for "funky" theme rooms and such, you'll be disappointed to know, that only very few love hotels these days offer such fun.... Mostly, they are very "practical" with little to distinguish them from business hotels other than the fact that they have certain "rules" and are located only in specially zoned areas of a city.

Anyway, we set out to find the room of our dreams at about 10:30 pm on a Saturday night. We hit Shinjuku's Kabuki-cho hard, wading through hookers, pimps, yakuza, gaijin on a mission, and other various life and low-life... We must have wandered through a minimum of twenty different love hotels....

About half-past midnight we finally settled for an older-looking place but the rooms were semi-themed. By that I mean there was no Hello-Kitty S&M gear or bumper cars in our room, but the rooms were funky, and there was a jacuzzi tub and even some complimentary condoms for our benefit... At first, the oba-san at the front desk first refused my wife entry (because she came in alone while I was parking the rental car) and she, being disconcerted, and not understanding why (being gai-jin like me and not speaking any Japanese), asked some passers-by on the street why this might be and they suggested that perhaps that particular hotel doesn't accept most honorable gai-jin-sama...
Fotunately I remember reading before we left, that most love hotels WON'T in fact allow a single person rent a room (or a couple of the same sex, for that matter)... So I reassured my wife, walked in with her, pushed the room button and paid the oba-san her Y11,000.

Just as an aside, rooms were cheaper than that, but whenever you rent a room on a weekend, there are additional charges... The price also goes up when you want something more than just a plain room.

The room's mini-bar was well stocked, and suprisingly not too expensive. I can handle Y200 for a can of Bud. However I brought my own bottle of champgne, conveniently purchased from a local FamilyMart a few blocks away.

The room's theme as far I can guess was: "Queen Victoria in the '60s." (That's 1960s).... In other words, imagine a harp, Royal Doulton figurines, and elegant feminine decor, with black lights, glow-in-the-dark roses and stars on the ceiling -- psychadelic, man! Well, the master controls on the headboard of the bed were fun, with more kinds of music channels I've ever seen, which was quite nice.

Overall, we had a great time.... We left at exactly 10am the next morning, handing the room key back to the SAME oba-san at the front desk (from midnight to 10am... Man that's a long shift).... We had fun, and can now say that we have experienced this unique part of Japanese culture.

Now for all those who are curious, yes I actually DID take pictures! But no lewd acts, sorry! You hentai-types will have to look elsewhere! For the rest of you, here's 3 pictures of the hotel -- two of our room, and one of the outside.

Cheers!

JD + Wife





Kabuki-cho looks a lot less seedy in the daytime...



Note the black lights in the round bedroom... The Royal Doulton figurines are in the glass-covered display alcoves in the back.



Yes, the harp was actually playable.... But terribly out of tune, hence useless....

[Gordon]

Thanks for the story.

[Gordon]

Hope you weren't videotaped like these people.
http://mdn.mainichi.co.jp/news/20031222p2a00m0dm010000c.html

[fromCanada]

I just read the article...that's scary!

[cangel]

They should at least compensate the couples... As for me, let them record. There's no shame in my game.

[Gordon]

Maybe they should let the couples keep the videotapes. A sort of memento.