They look like they belong together, no?

I got to stay in some pretty sweet places while shooting TofuguTV stuff, but I gotta say this was one of the coolest. I stayed in two capsule hotels. One sucked, and one was awesome. This is the awesome one. It was like Steve Jobs decided to stop making iPhones and iPads, and open a hotel chain. He’d say things like “This capsule hotel is our thinnest ever.” Or just plain stick with “Staying here is magical.” And I gotta say, it kind of was magical.

Capsule Hotel “9h”

9h (ナインアワーズ) Capsule Hotel is a very modern twist on the normally grungy, tiny, not-all-that-great capsule hotel scene going on in Japan. If I were a drunk salaryman looking for a place to stay for a few hours between overtime shifts (or between my binge drinking and my overtime shift) I’d stay here over anywhere else. It’s convenient, it’s clean, and it just feels good being here.

Taken by Gakuranman from Gakuranman.com (awesome blog! Go take a look).

Just like a lot of capsule hotels, you pay by the hour. Depending on when you’re there, it can be either 900 yen (base fee) + 300 yen/hour, or 900 yen base fee + 400 yen/hour. If you stay for around 9 hours (that’s 30 minutes of getting ready to sleep, 8 hours of sleeping, and then 30 minutes to get ready to go) then you’re probably going to pay around $50-$60, which isn’t all that bad if you compare it to most hotels (though a lot of hostels will be cheaper, just not as cool).

Everything is streamlined really well, though. You go inside, take off your shoes (and put them in a locker), go shower / wash up, go to your capsule to sleep, wake up, wash up, then check out. It’s all rather easy and simple, and there are signs all over the floors telling you what to do (whew).

By Gakuranman

After you’ve washed up and checked in, you go to your capsule to sleep. In this particular capsule hotel, there are men’s and women’s floors (though lots of capsule hotels don’t allow women). You can see which capsules are being occupied (below) by the slippers and whether or not the shade is drawn (looks like this room is pretty full).

Me and the The Gakuranman stayed here together. You can see how there’s two slippers nearby because we’re sleeping in the same capsule no slippers too close to each other because we were staying in capsules that weren’t the same capsules.

You’re given all the things you need to sleep, too. You get a toothbrush, towels, and even sleeping clothes (which, sadly, aren’t black turtle necks and jeans) that are really nice (I wish I could’ve bought a set). You even get some 9h branded water. That’s how hardcore they are here.

They do not bill you by the hour for water, thankfully

Some futuristic PJs

Private showers that lead into the public bath (i.e. after you take a shower you keep on going through the shower to the bath – it’s awesome!)

There’s even 9h branded shampoo, conditioner, and soap

Wake-Up Alarm System

Gakuranman looking to see how late it was. Time to go Haikyoing!

One of my favorite things is the alarm system. Since it’d wake everyone up if you had sound alarms (bleep bleep bleeeep!) 9h came up with a cool solution…. they us light to wake you up. Like a big old flash of light. You can see this happening in the video below:

[yframe url='http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FWKxBCMwwkY']

Totally didn’t wake me up because I suck at waking up to any kind of alarm, but still pretty sweet nonetheless. I’m sure normal people wake up to it.

You Should Go

Click on the map to see this in Google Maps

It was a lot of fun and worth experiencing! If you’re visiting Japan, chances are you’ll head to Kyoto (at least if you’re doing touristy things), so you might as well hit it up. Right next to an ampm, too, and ampm in Japan is awesome (in America not so much)! Hope you enjoy!

P.S. Think capsule hotels are too small? Follow Tofugu on Twitter.

P.P.S. Think capsule hotels are way too big? Then you should Like Tofugu on Facebook.

Flying In

The flight was uneventful (except for the turbulence that always appeared when I tried to go to the bathroom), long, and boring. I didn’t bring anything to do on the flight, so it was all about SkyMall. Seriously the best magazine ever made.

Upon landing, it was go-go-go, and I didn’t get to film much until I got into Shibuya (more on that a little later). I went downstairs and exchanged my JR Pass, which lets you ride all JR trains (that’s a lot of trains plus it includes the bullet train) for free (well, not free, but I only had to pay $700-ish dollars one time. Will pay for itself really quickly). After getting the JR Pass, I got my ticket for the train into Shibuya (because I knew there were some capsule hotels there, and you guys wanted Capsule Hotels), and it turned out it was leaving really soon. I ran down to the train, got in, and proceeded to use almost all 50mb of my phone data in one fell swoop. Whoops (Don’t worry, I upgraded to 200mb… I can’t use my phone so much).

Shibuya, The Man, And The Capsule Hotel

After arriving in Shibuya, I immediately started walking in the wrong direction, thinking I was walking in the right direction, and got lost in the Shibuya ghetto (if that’s even possible). While walking around, I met this older dude who wanted to know more about my camera set up. Turns out he didn’t have much to do, so he walked around with me to show me where Shibuya actually was, then show me some interesting things in Shibuya. For TofuguTV, I’m much more interested in the stuff that’s not in Tokyo, but I can show you here.

Me and the guy I met

We went around and saw a lot (and he wanted to see my capsule hotel, creepy, I know) – two things of interest include Hachiko, the ever faithful dog that waited for his master to come home (there was an American movie made about this).

…and a restaurant that specializes in Whale meat. You know, all in the name of science, or something. (P.S. if you don’t want to eat whale meat, you should probably avoid くじら).

That whale in the bottom right looks totally happy!

After he showed me around for a while, we went searching for a Capsule Hotel that also happened to be on the way home from this guy’s home (We’ll call him “Ta-san” because I only remember that his name starts with a “Ta”). It was a pretty sweet setup, actually. You get bathing facilities, a big locker, some sleepy clothes, a couple towels, and a nice coffin sized capsule to sleep in. I kept finding dead bugs in mine. I appreciate that they weren’t alive.

I’m planning on staying at another capsule hotel in Kyoto (which is totally awesome, from what I’ve read / seen), so I’ll do more on capsule hotels then, but this particular one wasn’t a bad experience. I’ll post more when I start putting up episodes of TofuguTV. One more good memory… there was a guy in one of the other capsules in my area that had a snore (or something) that was exactly like a dog barking. Maybe he had a dog. Either way, it kept waking me up, and it was really, really, weird. Seriously. Dog barking snore? Maybe he has something stuck in his throat… Other than that, it was a fairly good stay. Definitely recommend it for the experience, at least!

The Search For Wifi

The next morning (i.e. this morning, for me) was early. 4am to be exact. I pretty much just walked around in the dark and rain hoping that something would open. I ended up going to McDonalds because it was one of the only things open, and I thought they might have wifi. I was wrong.

This began an entire morning searching for wifi. Finally, I found a cafe called “Wired Cafe” in Shibuya. The internet there was pretty shoddy, but it got the job done. I think I was at the edge of the wifi signal. I’d have to move my computer to my left by about 3 feet in order to get things to load. I probably looked like a weirdo.

While I was there, I met the CEO of “Qoopedia” which is like Groupon (you get deals on things). He wants to make an English version for foreigners in Japan – you’ll probably hear about it here when that happens, too. We talked shop for a while (you know, business, startups, entrepreneurship, blah blah blah) and I headed out, eventually, because I needed a lighter long-sleeved jacket. I know a few of you called it. It’s way to warm here. My fleece jacket was unnecessary (but, I fixed that).

Hanging Out At Flutterscape HQ

Flutterscape CEO working hard on something

Luckily, today I had planned to go hand out at Flutterscape HQ (you buy Japanese things and get them shipped to you, it’s pretty awesome, and there’s free upgrades to express shipping going on right now, I think). Awesome to finally meet the folks I’ve been talking with a lot lately. I’ve bought a few products through Flutterscape and it’s always a great experience. The really convenient thing is that they ship things from Japan to America. I happened to have a problem where I packed too much and my backpack was too heavy. To solve this problem, I’m putting my stuff I don’t need in a box, and they’re shipping it back to my home in Portland, OR, so I don’t have to carry / throw it away. It’s a lot of stuff, too, and it’s (surprisingly) only going to cost around 2000 yen ($25-ish dollars). Not bad for international, considering how much box I’m sending back. Seriously, @hirrro who’s helping me do that is awesome. You help me say thanks to Flutterscape by tweeting this (click on the Twitter button below).

Oh, and I also got to use their wifi, so I could catch up on some email and write this post up.

Next Up? You Decide.

Of course, I don’t really know what I’m going to do from day to day, but I have some ideas for tomorrow. I’m going to start heading north (gotta get to Cat Island, eventually… so many people are requesting it). I’ll have a cameraman for a few days as well (Japanese friend from College), so it should be pretty good. Tomorrow is when the real show begins, I think.

I think there are three options. I’m going to lay them out here. For the first one, make sure you’re following on Twitter or Facebook to find / get the poll, going out soon. I’ll probably try to see a couple of these, at least, but I’d love to know what ones you want to see the most.

Option 1: “Western Village.” This amusement park is “American Western” themed, which means there will be cowboys and stuff. I’m really hoping it’ll be full of really ridiculous depictions of America, or be something like “America Town” from that episode of The Simpsons. Either way, it should be full of interesting hijinks, weird culture translations, and (hopefully) Japanese cowboys saying “putto uppu yoru handzu.”

Option 2: “Sex Robot Museum.” I have no idea what’s actually here, just that there are sex robots, or robots doing the dirty thing, or maybe a little bit of both. Who knew that there was a need to have a museum like this?

Option 3: “Sex God Museum.” Once again, not 100% sure what’s here, but it should be interesting. It’s all a matter of whether you want Robots or Gods. Up to you, really.

Option 4: “See Some Monkeys.” My camera man says he knows how to find monkeys around here. There’ll also be another opportunity near Nagano to see some monkeys, too, so keep that in mind. Not sure what these monkeys do, but monkeys are monkeys, and monkeys are pretty awesome.

There you have it. To vote on what you want to see the most, head on over to Twitter or Facebook to find the link to vote. While you’re there, you should make sure you’re subscribed to both of them… I won’t always tell you where to look, you know!