Tokyo Love Hotel

Tokyo was wildly expensive--and a place that severely contrasted the cities we'd visited. 24 hours there cost us the price of one week in south-east Asia.

But, we gladly paid for the experience.

We had no guide book, because we'd heard there was good English in airports and trains stations, along with free maps of everything. We took a train from the airport to central Tokyo which lasted 1.5 hours one way and cost 80 USD round trip. Imagine what a taxi would have run us!

We heard that a room would cost atleast 70 dollars per night. But the cheapest option around was a sleeping capsule--a coffin-like compartment that's rented by the hour and costs 30 dollars for 8 hours. We both wanted to try it, but figured we'd pay the same amount to get a bonafide room. And was it ever!

We'd heard about Love Hotels as a cheap option because they could also be rented for hourly rates and would cost much less than a regular room if checked into after 9pm. We heard these Love Hotels were clean and safe, so when we saw what inevitably must have been one, we checked in.

Everything in the lobby was clean and classy, compartmentalized and flashy. But the room, the room, the room. Mirrors on the ceiling, velvet red and gold walls, karaoke machine with microphone, lotions, gels and toys, packaged robes and towels, a computer toilet, a jaccuzi tub, and a radio with 10 stations and a glowing heart that throbbed with every beat. We had two doors and thick walls, a microwave, two refrigerators and a tea pot.
Who would've thought Tokyo was a honeymooner's paradise?

The next day, we walked 4 or 5 miles through central Tokyo before we took the unbelievably fast train back to the airport.

Tokyo was a beautiful clean city with pristine air in the sky and clunky Amsterdam bikes in the streets.

It was very different from any of our other Asian experiences.