Darlo's World

Warning, this post may not be appropriate for young’uns.

So I’d briefly mentioned about Love Hotels in my Kinky in Kinki post back in January, and definately wanted to see inside one at some point out of general curiosity. Being told various things like “the rooms have karaoke and game consoles in them” definately added to my curiosity. After finding a friend who was also curious about the goings on, we decided to check out one of them in Umeda.

For those that don’t know, in a nutshell a Love Hotel is a hotel designed for couples to enjoy some quiet alone time, and can be paid for by the hour or overnight.

I’d just like to take this moment to say that we did not do anything of an adult nature at the hotel. ಠ_ಠ

Before meeting up at Umeda Station, I had a nose around Umeda’s Love Hotel area looking at prices by the hour. Prices really varied depending on the grandeur of the hotel, and at times the rooms had different charges dependant on theme or popularity. The cheapest I’d found was 2,000 yen (£13.38) and most expensive over 8,000 yen (£53.51), with the common price being around the 3,000 yen mark (£20.06). Ironically the least expensive hotel appeared to be one of the less dodgy, but as I’ve seen many times in Japan appearances can be deceptive.

After having a bit of food we headed over to the cheapest establishment. We must have been there at a relatively busy time as we saw one couple leaving (satisfied smiles on faces), and another couple heading in (excited smiles on faces). Apparently the 2,000 yen room had been taken so we opted for the next cheapest room at 2,500 yen (£16.73). At this particular hotel (might be different in others), when you walk in there’s a large wall with pictures of the different rooms and buttons to make your selection (pretty much like a vending machine). It then prints you out a ticket and you head to your room; there’s a little flashing light above your door. When your time is up you pay at a window which is partially obscured to protect privacy, however the security cameras kind of make it directly inadequate. Perhaps it’s to give the customer peace of mind that they don’t have to look in the eye of the cashier.

We headed to our room, conveniently on the bottom floor, and after taking off our shoes we slid the door open to reveal a quaint Japanese style tatami room. Off to the left was the rather nice looking bathroom, complete with washlet and various accessories standard of normal hotels; shampoo etc. Through another door was a large bath and shower area (plenty of room for 2 ^_~), which had a window giving a view of the main bedroom and vice-versa. By flicking a certain light switch, the whole room went red. Romantic for some, this just seemed to remind me of many blood stricken horror films.

And then the main bedroom. A huge futon bed taking up the majority of the space that I could easily have just stayed in all day. Perhaps it’s because my dorm bed isn’t wanderful, but this bed felt great. The only thing that marred it for me was the knowledge of “I know what people have done in this bed” >_<. After flicking on the TV and getting a screen full of boobs and pixels (in Japan certain aspects of pornography are illegal, so those aspects are generally pixelated or blurred) using a series of complex remote controls we managed to flick through some of the other channels, trying to find the karaoke and games. Yes, we did have karaoke, and yes there was a game system; not a PS3 like I'd been led to believe, but perhaps that's in one of the more expensive rooms.

Generally the room itself was really nice, and had it not been for the condoms at the head of the bed instead of the customary chocolate mints, I'd have been none the wiser. But it was time to get to action and do what we'd set out to do by coming to this Love Hotel. I opened my bag, and pulled out my copy of Kanji in Context and cracked on with some revision. What? Did you forget I have an important exam on Friday? My friend also had some work she needed to do so we both got on with it for a bit.

Finishing the hour with a little karaoke we left the room; the room itself was probably very dissapointed with us.

Love Hotels are something I’ve only really seen or heard about in Japan. When I spoke to some people at home about them they instantly got the wrong idea, thinking of brothels or a hotel where people just did it any old where. To be honest I probably won’t visit another one during my remaining couple of weeks, and it’s doubtful I’ll ever go to another one. However, we were really curious about what the more upscale rooms or hotels would be like.

In other news, today is Children’s Day.

Today a friend and I took a(nother) last trip to my beloved Nippombashi and DenDen town, in a quest to fill in some gaps of various manga series and such before heading off home. Stopping in Shinsaibashi on the way, we stopped off at the Mandarake for a quick nose. Though I mainly raided the shops supply of cheap さよなら絶望先生 (Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei, Goodbye Mr Despair), I managed to score two bargains for the Nintendo DS.

狼と香辛料 (Ookami to Koushinryou, Wolf and Spice (refferred to as Spice and Wolf in the UK)), is an anime I first saw at the Leeds Anime Society. I was mainly entranced by it’s storyline that wasn’t set in Japan, but old Europe, and the fact that it uses early economics and trading as a continual baseline. ¬_¬ Yeah that may sound dull and boring to you, but shush, it was great. So not only did I manage to find a copy of the game (that I didn’t know even existed), but I found a special edition box set. I just checked the Spice & Wolf website to find it has a price of 7,770 yen (£54.33), however I paid a measly 2,940 yen (£20.56). I’ve just opened the box and found a ‘Horo voice in a bag’, an audio CD, and of course the game itself. Not bad.

My other bargain was partially based on something I bought yesterday (but forgot to blog about). There are two Higurashi (yeah I know, lately I haven’t shut up about the series) games on the DS which I’ve been wanting to get since I first noticed them back in September, but they were just too expensive. Well yesterday after dropping a 13.8kg box of books at the post office (which will take about 3 months to reach the UK), I found a copy of the second game at a reasonable price (with a 200 yen coupon I had) of 2,280 yen (£15.94), so scooped it up.

Fast forward to today where I find the special edition (Angel Mort) boxed version of the second game for a meagre 1,890 yen (£13.22). The cheapest I’d seen this edition was in the region of 5,000-6,000 yen (£34.96-£41.95), so let’s open her up and see what she holds inside …

We have the game (of course), a framed Shion & Mion card in an Angel Mort stamp card (might take a while for me to read what it says inside >_<), 2 Angel Mort coasters (one written in English: “Dear Customer, Welcome to my cafe. How lucky you are to have chanced upon this place. A place that will make your dreams come true. Have you found your favourite angel? If not, don’t worry. Keep visiting us, and you’ll find your one and only. Please enjoy yourself to the full. We are here to serve you. From, shop owner”), 2 sticker cards, an Angel Mort flanel/hand towel, a paper Angel Mort apron, and an Angel Mort Drama CD. Quite a haul really. You can see a picture of what’s inside on this forum page, though for some reason they got an extra amulet thingy.

So in buying this I was left with the predicament of having two of the same game. My choices were simple. I could either keep both games, try and sell one on to a friend (or eBay), or try and take the more expensive one back to the shop. Despite not knowing how refunds were conducted in Japan or if any etiquette was needed on my part, I opted for the last option.

After quickly looking up the vocabulary for returning something to a shop 返送 (hensou) and refund 払い戻し (haraimodoshi), I headed to the shop (open 24-7, or as is said in Japanese 4-6 (四六時中, shirokujichuu, open around the clock, 4 x 6 = 24)) with the game, the receipt, and what I hoped was the same carrier bag.

Normally in the UK getting a refund isn’t a very simple process. Well, I guess it is (as long as you’re not a prick to whoever’s serving you), but normally the shop will want you to fill in a form, give your address, wait for a manager and so on and so on. With this in mind I was somewhats apprehensive about the whole thing, especially as I still take a good 10 minutes or so writing out my address. When I approached the counter I explained that “I bought the game yesterday as a birthday present for my friend, but he already had it so I wanted to return it” (my usual blatant returning product lie ಠ_ಠ). The staff member then popped to the back and returned with another member of staff. She then checked the amount with me and returned my money with a smile. No paper to fill in, no signatures to sign, that was it … done.

I think I’ll be leaving these two games for the plane trip back, but in the mean time, here’s what I bought today (these will be added to The List at some point, along with the ones I bought that day we went to the Mother Cafe.

• DS Games
• ひぐらしのなく頃に絆第一巻・想　エンジェルモートお持ち帰りBOX
• 狼と香辛料　ボクとホロの一年　初回限定版

• Music CD
• Moment by Vivian or Kazuma

• Sound Novels (games)
• うみねこのなくの頃に　第一話 (also came with a very funky metal bookmark
• うみねこのなくの頃に　第二話
• うみねこのなくの頃に　第三話 (I already had this, but couldn’t remember which of the three I didn’t have)

• Manga
• Genshiken – book 6 (series complete)
• Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei – books 10 to 16 (series complete … for now)
• The Meloncholy of Haruhi Suzumiya – book 5 and a one off special anthology
• Love Hina – book 0
• Akihabara Ichiman Chanel (1 off)
• Higurashi – the remaining books from the 罪滅し編 (tsumihoroboshi hen)
• Higurashi – the remaining book from the 宵越し編 (yoigoshi hen)
• Higurashi – コンプエース編 (comp ace hen)
• Higurashi – Book 1 of 5 of the 語咄し編 コミックアンソロジー (cohanashi hen comic anthology)