Space is precious and expensive in Japan’s dense cities. Enter the capsule hotel. These sleeping coffins maximize space. The idea came to Kurokaw Kisho back in the 1970s with a shipping container. Capsule hotels can stuff about 40 people into a single room. Each space tend to measure 2 meters long by 1 meter wide (about 6 feet long by 3 feet deep) (Uebergang, 2004).
Capsules are equipped with televisions, reading lights, radios, and space to crash on the cheap. The walls tend to be thin, so you can hear the other people stacked around you (Jones, 2012). Some hotels offer communal showers as Jones (2012) experienced, but sitting on plastic stools, lathering up next to grunting, naked men is far from appealing. Capsule hotels are gender segregated, after all.
The hotels provide a cheap, clean, and safe place to crash. That is the point. They are made for salarymen who missed the last train home, the jobless (who rent by the month), and the occasionally sloshed partier (Hornyak, 2011). Pajamas and slippers are also provided.
Some capsules offer gradual alarm-clock lights. These lights simulate the lighting of dawn to help keep sleep rhythms synced.
Foreigners report discomfort. Sleep capsules are not designed for the tall or the claustrophobic (Jones, 2012; Uebergang, 2004; Faerber, 2012). The pods have a blind for privacy, but it doesn’t do much good if your feet stick out. What’s the price for all this luxury? About $30 a night a few years ago (Jones, 2012; Uebergang, 2004).
Capsule hotels fill a niche in overcrowded cities. They provide a cheap bath (if you don’t mind being nude in public) and a safe, clean place to crash. That is…if you are not claustrophobic.
References
Faerber, F. (2012) Squeezing into a capsule hotel room in Japan. AP English Worldstream.
Hornyak, T (2011). Capsule hotels go high style. The New York Times.
Jones, N. (2012). Japan: living with Tokyo’s pod people. The New Zealand Herald.
Uebergang, K. (2004). A no-room inn. Herald Sun (Melbourne),
