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Published: August 10th 2007
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Room Service!!!
what is a hotel room without a bottle of Champers? Not sure why they provided a corkscrew with it, only they know the wisdom behind that one. Perhaps best not to ask :) Late one evening we packed a bag with enough clothes for on night, and slipped quietly into the night, to rendezvous with a train which would take us to Osaka. What was the purpose of this stealth? What sworded event would happen on our arrival? Only time would answer these questions.
Our first attempt at a one night stand ended slightly disappointingly as is so often the case in these circumstances. We left our train, exited, hoping to enter, but lost our way slightly and ended up in a dark back alley where we didn't want to be. Conversing with the locals was no help either as what we wanted, we couldn't really ask for as it isn't really the done thing. Anonymity is the name of the game when you play in this dark world, and to ask would be to give away the dirty secret.
Our second attempt at exiting after a one stop train ride, was more successful and we found what we had secretly been searching for........ Love Hotel Central , Osaka!!!!!!!
Visiting a love hotel was on our list of "must do's" in Japan, as it is really a pretty unique cultural thing
Look at that whopper!!!
I make the TV look small, it was a monster to Japan we think. Nowhere else is such range of taste catered for in a more in-your-face way but with such anonymity and class. As we hit our destination we where struck with the bright lights, face facaded buildings, and empty streets. Kind of like a kinky Disneyland with no visible patrons, covered number plates and human less reception desks. Choosing our entry point was going to be difficult as the array of hotels on offer was quite vast. They are all clustered together in one spot so browsing for the perfect room proved very easy indeed. Our research had told us that Osaka was THE place to be for novelty hotels and it did prove far better than what central Tokyo had to offer. You can get everything here from a dingy grotty looking B&B style room, to a state of the art, space themed pleasure paradise with all the gadgets and gizmo's to distract you from the matter at hand (as it were).
After browsing some 10 or so hotels of varying quality, we typically plumped for the first one we had been in some 30mins earlier. It wasn't the most novelty of rooms (no Hello Kitty
bondage here, or S&M rack), but it had some novelty features and looked new and luxurious. The choice of lodgings for the night is made on a big plasma screen which displays all the facilities on offer and the prices. All of it is in Japanese of course, so we guesstimated at most of it and pressed the button to get our ticket. It was at this point that the anonymous hotel got a bit less so, as a woman appeared from a back room to help out the clearly helpless English people. She spoke very little English but thankfully enough to explain to us what the hell was going on and what we had to do. She knew all the important stuff like "Cash Only", "Follow me" and "Press Here".
So we had got our room and nearly achieved entry, what next? Well the screen showed us a map, and the lady said "follow me". We got into the lift, went to the desired floor and turned the corner. Bugger me if the light outside our designated room wasn't flashing in a very "come here big boy" manner. We did exactly that and went in, where the lady
A Chair
Just your normal average PVC chair, like you have in every hotel room :) explained (via pointing) that we put the cash into the machine on the wall, and pressed the orange button on checkout. At this point the very kind manageress lady left us and closed the door. What was the room going to be like, was it going to be seedy and the worst one night stand we had ever had?? HELL NO..... on opening the door to the room we discovered we had scored BIG TIME and the room was in fact massive, and the best damn hotel room we had ever stayed in anywhere. The room had a: HUGE plasma TV, free video on demand with hundreds of videos, a VCR/DVD player, a Playstation 2, a Karaoke Machine with a telephone book of songs, 2 minibars (only 1 with drinks ;-)), an electric adjustable bed with a huge mirror above, a disco ball and lights, a jacuzzi with TV and lights under water, a steam room, a heated/ squirty toilet seat, an electric PVC chair for 2 people (enough said about that one), the list goes on and on........ For the price we had paid (less than 10.000yen) it was astonishing. We had the whole place to ourselves as well
Minibar No. 2
First one has drinks, second one has... everything but drinks! from 9pm till 11am the next morning.
After the initial shock and pleasure of entering had passed, we had calmed down from all our screaming in delight. We decided some booze was in order to relax with in the jacuzzi. Time for Andy to do a 7elleven run, click, "The door doesn't open!". Yes, once you are in the hotel, there is no escape till you payup and checkout. "Balls!". Our only option was room service, which turned out to be pretty reasonable, so we ordered a bottle of champagne via the TV (anonymous naturally). Knock Knock!!! about 10 mins later this sweet little old lady appeared at the door which the champagne and dropped it off. This was clearly a family affair, and a well run one too. Actually you could order pretty much everything over the telly, from food and drinks to toys, presents and kinky outfits - brilliant!
So.... the one night stand itself was spent enjoying the facilities, finding out what all the buttons were there for, drinking champagne, and kareoking away. Josie was amazed about all the cremes, face masks, and lotions and potions in the bathroom. This was a place to totally
Night Fever , Night Fever......
Disco room with changing light, reacts to any sound you may make... any sound pamper yourself! The other details shall remain a secret as I am sure no-one wants to hear any of that. The one night stand turned out to be our best night in Japan, and one we will remember for the rest of our lives. If you hear love hotel and think tacky, seedy, dirty affair, think again. It can be, but doesn't have to be any of those things if you choose carefully and are brave enough to enter where others do not dare. We had ourselves an amazing time and stayed in 5 star luxury for a not so 5 star price.
We would have a one night stand again in the blink of an eye, so if we every return to Japan, look out Osaka, we shall return!!!
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