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December 22nd was the final day of the fall semester at school so I spent that day freezing away in the high school gym (which has no heating system despite the fact that it's a brand new multi-million dollar facility) and listened to random speeches from the principal encouraging the students to work hard during the upcoming semester blah blah blah while it snowed outside. When the ceremony was over I ran home to my apartment to gather all my things and head off to Tokushima City where I caught the bus to Osaka. Even though my flight was not scheduled to depart until 10 a.m. the following morning, I decided to spend the night in Osaka (Namba District) to avoid any possible weather-related cancellations of the ferry from Tokushima City to Kansai International Airport (which is a human made island in the middle of Osaka Bay and is sometimes subject to bad oceanic weather dramas). So I played it safe and stayed in Osaka.
Which is just what I did. The next morning I awoke refreshed and relaxed and realized what a great invention this capsule hotel concept was and thought that it would be great to have them in the West as well!
So I departed Japan, flew to Seoul, hung out there in the main terminal of the airport for a couple hours and then caught my connecting flight to Frankfurt without delay. The flight was relatively uneventful, despite the fact that there were two screaming babies on board just in front and behind me, but I was totally unaffected since I brought a nice FAT pair of earplugs with me and a nice comfy eye mask. I totally blocked out the rest of the world and got some quality shut-eye! |
One
might think that the story of my European Tour 2000 might actually
commence in Europe itself, but so is not the case for me. I shall
instead start in Japan, since getting to and from Kansai
International Airport from Waki-machi, Tokushima on Shikoku Island is
half the difficulty of me actually going anywhere in the world!
In
order to avoid spending a hundred million dollars for a night at a
real hotel, I arranged to spend the night in what is called a
"Capsule Hotel," or in Japanese "Kapuseru Hoteru".
The basic function of a capsule hotel is to house drunk business men
who stay out too late at night and for whatever reason can't go home
or have no hotel room of their own. Plus, it's much less expensive
than a regular hotel room, 3,500 yen / $35 a night vs. $60 to $150.
The layout of a capsule hotel is as follows: you walk into the hotel
lobby, take off your shoes, stick them in a little shoe locker, check
in and get the key NOT to your hotel room, but rather, to your
clothes locker. You walk through a typical little Japanese curtain
and into a nice little locker room - not a nasty and gross locker
room - but a nice clean one where you lock up all your belongings and
change into a "yukata" cotton robe. Once in your robe you
take the elevator up to the communal bathing area, wash up (which the
Japanese ALWAYS do before getting into bed) and then walk do your
"room". The room, which is more like a morgue storage unit,
is approximately 1 meter (yard) wide by 1 meter high by 2 meters long
- just long and tall enough to sit up or sleep comfortably.
The
capsules are located all along the hallway walls of the various
floors of the hotel. The particular floor I was staying on had two
hallways, each lined with 32 capsules, 16 on each side of the hallway
stacked 2 tall. My capsule was on the top level, and despite the fact
that the description of this arrangement makes it sound more like a
catacomb than a hotel, it is in fact extremely cool. The capsules
themselves feel like cryogenic sleep chambers for interstellar travel
on a space ship - inside the white, plastic capsule is a small, thin
futon mattress (2 inches thick) with a light, white duvet. Once
inside the capsule, to the right there is a digital control panel
that controls the interior lighting, the television molded into the
ceiling, the stereo sound system, and the alarm clock. After playing
around will all the controls like a child, you can then shut
everything off, roll down the window-shade-like door at your feet and
fall asleep comfortably in the climate-controlled chamber.
After
departing the capsule hotel I walked around the corner to Namba
Station and caught the Kansai Airport Rapid highspeed train for the
30 minute journey to the airport. This particular train holds the
title for most likely being the most highly styled train in the
world. The blue exterior is a love-it-or-hate-it funky bulbous design
that is sure to stir some sort of emotion on first sight (as all
design should do!) and the interior is absolutely sumptuous! With its
high elliptical ceilings and large ovular windows, I was reminded
just how beautiful and enjoyable public transport can actually be!
During transit I sat and watched the LED electronic display at the
front of the car scrolling the day's news and occasionally peered out
the window to watch the Japanese urban landscape fly by.
Finally,
I arrived at the airport, checked in, and made it just in time to
get through passport control (which was an ABSOLUTE zoo!) and to
directly board the aircraft. As always, I flew with Korean Air which
first flies to Seoul, South Korea and then to wherever in the world
you'd like to go. Most Japanese are horrified when I tell them that I
fly with Korean Air, and telling them that Korean Air hasn't had a
catastrophic air disaster since 1997 never seems to put them at ease
either. But when the cost difference between a Japanese carrier and a
continental Asian carrier is $400, you can see the incentive for
flying Korean! (Knock on wood!!!)