Friday 17 July 2015
Accommodation: Tokyo Kiba Hotel booked on Hotels.com. Capsule with double bed for two people for £33.54 for one night.
A night in a capsule
After our attempt at climbing Mount Fuji during a typhoon, we got the highway bus back to Tokyo from Kawaguchiko as the trains were cancelled due to the weather.
We were really keen to spend a night in one of the capsule hotels as these are very unique to Japan. I read that there are mainly used by drunk ‘salary men’ who miss the last train home. Many of them are either male only or are split into male/female floors which was off putting as we preferred to stay together.
I came across Tokyo Kiba Hotel which was the only capsule hotel I found that we could stay together as it has double capsules. We decided just to book for one night. Although it was nice and cheap, I wasn’t sure how well we’d be able to sleep plus it was also shared bathrooms and I was still keen to avoid getting naked with strangers when I booked (though wasn’t too bothered after our onsen experience).
We got the metro to our hotel and once again were completely lost when we came out of the station. They have so many exits that it’s hard to figure out where you are on a map. Once again, a lovely Japanese person saved the day! A lady asked us if we were lost (she must have guessed from our look of confusion) and if she could help us. She was walking in the direction of our hotel so we walked with her for five minutes and she pointed it out to us. The hotel was back from the main road and the sign was only written in Japanese characters so we wouldn’t have been able to find it without help.
We checked into the capsule hotel and were given keys for our lockers and the number of our capsule. As the capsules obviously have limited space, you leave the majority of your luggage downstairs. At the reception there is an area where you can leave your suitcase which is out in the open but Japan is generally very safe so we didn’t mind this. Then you can put your valuables in the locker and take the essentials up to your capsule. We put our luggage and valuables in the storage and headed upstairs to find our capsule for the evening!
The floors of capsules have two levels so you either have a bottom capsule which you duck down and climb into, or a top capsule which you climb up the little ladder to. We had a bottom capsule, which seemed a little easier. We had also ‘splashed out’ on a slightly larger capsule – with ‘double bed’ instead of ‘semi double bed’. It wasn’t much more expensive and TripAdvisor reviews had suggested it was a good idea to have the extra space.
We’d been worried that the capsules would be a bit coffin-like but they were much bigger than expected and you could easily sit up inside then. Each capsule has a little TV and radio.
Our floor was quite quiet when we checked in with only a few other tourists taking photos, which of course we did too.
The bathrooms were on a different floor and there were western style toilets. The ‘bath’ area was shared with showers with little stools and a big hot tub. Definitely not as luxurious as our ryokan in Kinosaki, but all part of the experience!
Nails
We had got engaged the previous day while climbing Fuji and I was keen to get some funky Japanese nails to show off my ring with! I searched online and found a helpful blog with some tips about getting your nails done in Tokyo and a recommended nail salon – Espoir Shibuya salon. The salon has an English website and I worked out roughly what I wanted but with the ability to speak only a couple of words of Japanese, I was pretty stumped at how to call a nail salon and book an appointment.
I went down to our hotel’s reception and spoke to a woman who worked there that spoke English. I explained what I was looking for and she offered to call the nail salon for me. The call took a good five minutes and she hung up. She had made an appointment for me at 5.30pm and told me to go to the salon for 5pm. I know lateness is considered very rude in Japan so this was a helpful tip. It sounded like a very complex conversation and I don’t think I would have managed to make an appointment without her help.
Back on the sushi train
Before my nail appointment, we went in search of sushi. We had been to Shibuya at the start of our trip and discovered the amazing Genki Sushi so decided to go back there for some amazingly delicious sushi delivered on little trains! Second time round was just as delicious.
We had a good look through the on-screen menu and found some funny western/Japanese options for the less adventurous eater – hamburger sushi!
Nails – Tokyo style
We headed to the Espoir Shibuya salon at the Success Shibuya Building at 5pm. Another excuse to pass by Shibuya’s famous crossing which we had previously only seen at night.
Although my appointment wasn’t officially until 5.30pm, I was soon sat down in a big comfy chair selecting nails. My nail technician spoke no English and worked out what I wanted through photos, a translation app and pictures that she drew. She spent ages working out what I wanted and I was really pleased with the designs. The patterns of flowers and tartan were done free hand, which I thought was super impressive.
All in, I was there for about two hours and the girl did an amazing job. Weeks later, the nails weren’t chipped and I got them replaced at another salon.
I got a discount as it was my first appointment and the price was ¥7,250 (£53 with today’s exchange rate) for a 90 min appointment (although I was there 2 hours). A great experience (for me! Poor David was sitting reading a book but if you give a girl a ring, she needs fabulous nails!) and I would definitely go back whenever I return to Tokyo (though might need to hope for the exchange rate to work more in our favour again!).
Shinjuku
After dinner we went to check out the Shinjuku area of Tokyo, which we had missed the first time round. We got the train there and WOW! This was the bright lights of Tokyo that you see in photos!
We planned to go to the Robot Restaurant the next night so went there to book tickets. The street was crazy. So busy and bright with neon lights everywhere. Very much how we expected Tokyo to look and very exciting! We had a wander along the street, checking out the bars and restaurants.
We spotted a Scottish bar and David couldn’t resist so I was dragged in! (To be fair, he’d just sat in a nail salon for two hours!) We spent a while there, David enjoying a Guiness (although not Scottish). I had a few cocktails and it was nice to be able to order something I recognised after a few weeks of the likes of ‘highballs’ that I still don’t know what they are (whisky based I think?).
Raman and all you can drink karaoke
After the Scottish pub, we went in search of dinner and found ourselves in a ramen restaurant called Tokyo Tonkotsu Noodle.
It had a pictures with numbers and we picked what we wanted and put our money in the machine and pushed the number. We handed the tickets to the chefs and soon had ourselves so delicious ramen and gyoza.
There was one final thing that we had to try – a karaoke bar. We wandered in to the first one we saw which wasn’t the real deal at all. I think usually you have a private room for your group where you drink and sing songs but this was just a normal basement bar with an electronic darts/karaoke machine.
We went to order a drink but were told it was only ‘all you can drink’ so we decided to pay the money for this. It didn’t work out very economical as, after about 10 minutes of dart playing and on our first drink, we suddenly remembered someone warning us that the metro finished at about midnight and our capsule hotel was at the opposite side of the city!
Panicking as we had heard taxis are super expensive, we made a swift exit and ran towards the nearest metro station! We arrived at the metro station with lots of very drunk Japanese people, which was interesting to see as they are generally so organised and polite!
It was two metros back to our hotel and we managed to catch the first one. When we got to Tokyo Station (about half way), it was closing and we had to find a taxi. We were pleasantly surprised that the taxi only cost us about £15! Way cheaper than the taxis in Edinburgh (although the difference in Yen will make this more expensive now).
We got back to the capsule hotel a little after midnight. There were a few people sitting in the reception area and it was very quiet on the floor where our capsule was. We quietly got ready and climbed into our capsule for the night. It was pretty comfy! I had a good night’s sleep (the cocktails might have helped this!) but David found it a little noisy.
Shared bathrooms
When I’d booked this hotel and seen the shared showers, my plan had to been to avoid these and instead have a shower later at our next hotel. However, after experiencing these in both Takeno and Kinosaki I decided to go for a quick shower. The shower/bath area was empty and I was able to sneak in and out without seeing anyone! Clean and ready for our final day exploring Japan.
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