Just to experience real Japan (and get away cheap) I took a room at a capsule hotel on my last 2 days stay. It's called capsule hotel because you sleep IN a capsule. The original idea to develop these inexpensive hotels came from the Japanese business culture. In Japan you have very long days and if you manager want to go out and eat with you or drink with you after work you are not allowed to refuse. You also have to pay your bill yourself so it sucks if your not a manager...well that's out of the point but many people commute from far away places because Tokyo central is immensely expensive! Tokyo has 16 million people by daytime and 12 million by night time. That's how many people travel far away to work....
Well, let's imagine Mr. Yamato daily commuting 1,5 hours with train to work. In the evening at 9 a'clock his boss wants Yamato-san to go out for Sake! Yamato is a good employee and does not want to lose face so he kindly accepts evil bosses idea to go out. After 12 in the night Yamato-Sans last train already left and taking a taxi home would cost him 2 days salary. Option two is taking a hotel, rather a cheap one because he doesen't really have time to enjoy a fancy hotel with a 5 hour sleep.
Yamato goes to the nearest capsule hotel and pays a nice 20 euros for a capsule bed and sleeps well!
This is the story of capsule hotels in a nutshell...
And by the way, the bed was really nice!
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