Trifter

Tokyo

If your life leads you to win the lottery then Central Tokyo could be the place for you to grab a lifetime of unique snoozes.Spend your millions in the Big Mikan compacting yourself into pads that the central business district offers as late night,semi-frilled, no reservation accomodation or “capsule hotels”.When I mentioned I was planning to try a night in a capsule to the lads from the Bridge to Heaven township in remote Central Honshu where I had been travelling they thought it a scary prospect.And they regularly fished for crabs in Japan Sea blizzards.”Capsule ka? Coffin yori semai na “(Going to stay in a capsule?A coffin’s got it all over a capsule for space,man”) Maybe it was a big town,small town thing I thought……maybe.So,heedless to Koji, Taro and Yusuke’s somewhat negative insights I shelled out the money I had saved on bus fares by hitch-hiking from Bridge to Heaven to Tokyo and checked in.

The positives of the capsule experience are on the quirky side.Creature comforts adorn your very personal space in the form of wall-to-wall carpeting, air-con and even surround-sound satellite TV.Literally right there before you.Curiously there was at the base of the compartment a small pocket sized trapdoor which I was to find out about later.The most eerie part of being in a compartment (forgive the pun) was when it came to stop playing pool  in the all-night lounge with the drunks who had missed the last train home .I lifted the capsule cover, gently lowered myself in and pulled the llid home after me.It was like being in a very extended version of those kids hide-and-seek games.The guy I had beat at pool was in the capsule next to me and though each unit was fairly well sound insulated I am sure we could have talked about having another game. Thesensation was of hiding in the wardrobe, feeling your own breath….like hide-and-seek,just with some lighting and mod-cons added.Kind of cool.

The negative of staying in a capsule is an alarming tendency,should you be a slow poke,for the platoons of grandmothers who do the hotel cleaning to jab chunky needles into the soles  of your feet at checkout time to rouse you.This they do through the little trapdoor I had noticed earlier.An extremely effective method of clearing the place-if a little lacking in the finesse the Japanese are famed for.Getting literally needled by the staff coupled with capsule sizes that are generally built to accomodate guests somewhat shorter than my 180cm was a minus.Easily forgotten niggles for such a memorable nights sleep I thought though.So if you did come to Tokyo’s(or Osaka’s) CBD long on cash and short of a sleeping bag capsules certainly beat dozing on your feet in crowded trains.Don’t know about  spending your entire lottery windfall on them though….