Dallas Morning News, January 3, 2010
[floatr][/floatr]OSAKA, Japan -- I checked myself into the hotel on one of Osaka's typically muggy late-summer afternoons. I went to my room, which contained the standard bed, television and clock radio, and when it was time to pull the blinds, I was careful not to hit my head on the 3-foot-high ceiling.
I had already done that once.
So this wasn't your average hotel room. The Sunplay Inn Nagahori is a capsule hotel, a must-stay for the foreign visitor to Japan who wants to know the true meaning of the term "close quarters."
The human-size safe-deposit boxes illustrate the ingenuity of a country that is about the size of California, yet has a population roughly half that of the entire United States.
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The hotel, of course, did have bathrooms, though some were of the traditional Japanese style: a 2-foot-long elliptical bowl in the floor and no toilet seat to speak of, or sit on.
[...]
In Japan, bathing is a ritual, a way of cleaning one's mind as well as body after a busy day. And for the Japanese, the bath offers a rare moment of relative privacy.
The bathing room was similar in appearance to an indoor public pool, only smaller and without screaming kids. To the left was a series of stations, each of which had a shower sprayer for washing yourself before the bath. To the right was a rectangular tub, not much larger than a standard apartment complex pool.
As a gaijin, or foreigner, I wasn't used to Japanese public bathing. But despite some trepidation, I pressed on, determined to get some of the serenity that the bath was supposed to offer.
"Hot" would be a mild way of describing the water temperature, and the serenity was a bit difficult to achieve. I stuck with it for a few minutes before making my way to the exit. The two Japanese businessmen in the bathtub were amused by my attempt to join their cultural experience.
Back at my capsule, I tried out the TV built into the ceiling of the unit and happened upon a poorly dubbed American movie. Even in one of the most Japanese forms of accommodation, where culture shock hits you the moment you walk in the door, a hint of America could be found.
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