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I recently experienced the leisurely delights of a Japanese style 'Love
Hotel'. I assure you, my main purpose for the visit was strictly an investigative
one, after hearing many stories from fellow foreigners and of course after
perusing the mass of literature on the curious phenomenon that is the
Japanese 'Love Hotel'.
I feel a bit of background information on the topic is in order. Love
hotels in Japan cater mainly for couples in need of discreet liaisons
or married couples wanting to have a few hours to themselves away from
the pressures of parenthood and family life. Everywhere you go around
here you can see such hotels, often given away by their loud colour (usually
ugly pink buildings that can be identified at first glance as a 'love'
zone) or by the ridiculously over-the-top tacky features such as huge
neon coconut trees or gigantic roof-top flashing hearts. Couples can secure
a room for amounts of time ranging from 15 minutes (for those lunchtime
business meetings) or up to one night for those lovers wishing to make
it last.
I and my lovely companion and fellow investigator (who shall henceforth
be referred to in her own curious words as) "the noisy squirrel",
happened to chance upon one such brightly-lit building on the side of
the highway one night. Glancing in my rear-view mirror to make sure no
one was following us, I made the turn-off and we coasted down the narrow
street towards the target with nervous anticipation.
As we circled the building looking for a parking spot, I noticed the first
of many odd things. Most cars had large metal sheets with pink and yellow
stripes resting against their front grills. Secret Squirrel to my left
informed me that these plates were for anxious customers to cover their
registration plates. I figured that suspicious wives or husband who happened
to be driving around this building would certainly be prevented from recognising
their spouses' number plate due to the metal sheets, however upon thinking
about this for a few further seconds I decided that they would recognise
the car far quicker and a simple look behind the sheet of metal would
of course simply confirm their suspicions. It was the first of many super
discretion devices I was to encounter that evening.
We found a free parking space and after getting out we began to sneak
around the car like special agents about to rescue a group of hostages.
As I stealthily rounded the rear of the vehicle I noticed that the squirrel
had a large convenience store bag full of munchies and drink. "What've
you got those for?" I whispered. "Just in case," she answered,
and with slight wiggle of the nose she was inside the main building.
Upon entering the foyer I noticed a distinct lack of desk staff. Instead
there was a big photo chart of all of the hotel rooms upon the wall behind
the counter. The two vacant rooms were backlit, giving us a choice of
where to spend the night. We decided on room 407, and as I pressed the
corresponding button on the Captain's bridge type control panel, the backlighting
faded from the wall chart and a flashing arrow to my left indicated that
we should enter the waiting lift.
So far so good; we had not been seen by a soul. The operation was going
exactly to plan. We stepped into the lift and began to ascend. On the
walls were some intriguing diagrams of what seemed to be a beach style
'Lilo' mattress being used by a couple of women, who were demonstrating
various intriguing positional manoeuvres. So intriguing were these diagrams
to my companion that soon after leaving the lift I found myself standing
completely alone in a dark corridor. The only real light to be seen was
coming from a nearby sign with a flashing arrow and number 407. The squirrel
and the lift now seemed to be descending once again to the ground floor.
For a second I imagined I had been the victim of a cruel joke, being stranded
for the night in a love hotel by myself. Things got even worse when a
door opposite me swung open to reveal a man and a woman who seemed to
be still buttoning up her blouse. I frantically tried to look busy by
suddenly becoming engrossed in a poster on the wall which was written
entirely in Japanese, save for the words "Joy" and "Video",
and with a picture of a man in a Superman-style cape straddling what seemed
to be some sort of missile or rocket ship. I felt like some sort of pervert,
standing in a shady corridor waiting for couples to leave their room so
I could leer at them or conduct some sort of other dodgy stuff. Thankfully
they seemed just as embarrassed as I was, and shuffled past to a second
lift just around the corner. Meanwhile the squirrel was on her way back
up.
Without as much as a word she slipped out of the lift and strode past
me to the door of 407. The size of the room immediately surprised me.
It was bigger than my entire apartment. Some of the room contents were
also unexpected, particularly the Nintendo game console and Karaoke unit.
I set about examining the contents of the mini vending machine on the
counter. There were things in there which seriously made me question the
antics of people who frequented places like this. I went for safety and
opened the fridge. Similar battery powered items were packed in there
as well, leaving the fridge entirely lacking in any consumable items whatsoever.
From her bag of goodies, squirrel produced a nice bottle of French red,
and we set about drinking out of tea cups (for all the gadgets and complimentary
goodies in the room, I was surprised to note an absence of wine glasses).
We then toasted our (semi) successful entry to the hotel. I used this
opportunity to tell her about the incident in the corridor which she seemed
to find a little too hilarious.
We soon discovered that by turning the television on, we activated a pink
neon light above the bed. This gave the room a cosy glow, and I was disappointed
we couldn't get the light to work without the television. It would have
made a great night light if I needed to go to the toilet in the middle
of the night. Our selection of programs was great: Japanese drama, soccer,
golf, blue movie, motor racing, blue movie, more drama, blue movie and
so on. I was very interested in the motor racing; however the squirrel
convinced me that we should investigate all possible channels.
Let me just shock you all by saying here that pornography positively pervades
the flip side of Japanese society. It is everywhere if you look carefully.
Only a week before I had been sitting beside a man on the bullet train
who spent the entire time flicking through an extremely explicit comic
book without any regard for the woman on the other side of him, or the
poor young girl serving him coffee and sandwiches. It seems that because
the pornography is in comic form it is socially acceptable, or at least
goes unchallenged. Indeed one of the major social problems that you don't
often hear about in Japan is schoolgirl prostitution, much of which happens
in places like the one in which we were staying. However, in order for
the videos to be legally sold and rented, all the actual explicit bits
have to be blurred out, so after a few minutes I found that my intense
squinting was beginning to give me a headache.
Since the purpose of this piece is purely an investigative one, there
should be no need to provide for you too much detail of the following
actions of both myself and the noisy squirrel. However, let me just say
that although- while relaxing in that ambient pink atmosphere- we did
continue our investigations, at no stage were any refrigerated items required.
Needless to say after all of my analysis I slept like a baby and awoke
refreshed the next morning to the sounds of the "Midnight Blue"
channel. It seems someone was feeling the need to do a little bit more
research on the hotel programming.
I was filled with angst about how we would pay and then get out of the
place without being seen by anyone. Indeed now the challenge of going
unseen was kind of addictive: it fulfilled some sort of secret desire
in me to do something anonymously in a country where everything I do,
including buying cereal at the local supermarket, is keenly observed by
children and students and even grandmas, who all have this stunned sort
of expression about them, as if conducting a problem-free transaction
at the checkout counter was something they had never expected from such
an awkward foreign-looking person.
The squirrel called the front desk to say we were checking out (she put
on a very clever false squirrel voice) and within minutes our television
screen flashed up a display of our entry and exit times and subsequent
room charge. This, I guessed, was to avoid having to wait at the counter
while a nervous new employee carefully added up your bill or gave you
the wrong change.
We made it to the lift safely and descended to the ground floor where
I hoped there would be no queue of customers. As I stepped out of the
lift I was startled by a woman's voice coming from behind a black screen
to my immediate right. Two small and wrinkled hands appeared from the
bottom of the screen and I carefully slid the money to within their grasp.
With a polite "thank you" and "please come again"
from behind the screen our transaction was complete and we were soon on
the highway for home. A successful investigation was completed and we
celebrated with a breakfast 'set' at the nearest McDonalds.
For those of you who feel that I left out much important information,
let me just leave you with an old Japanese proverb:
"Sugitaru wa oyobazaru ga gotoshi."
"Too much is as bad as too little."
Some things are better left unsaid. However, I must say, I would be keen
to find a different hotel with some theme rooms…a nice jungle theme
wouldn't be an altogether bad idea…
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