At Hiragen Ryokan the exposed wood and tall ceilings will put the zap on your brain.
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Visitors to Japan are advised to try traditional Japanese-style lodgings, the "ryokan," such as Hiragen, in Yokote, Akita-ken, Kimi Ryokan in Ikebukuro, Tokyo, or Taito Ryokan in Asakusa, Tokyo, my favourite for cheap Tokyo lodgings. Find more of these types of places from the Japanese Inn Group.
Otherwise, travellers should go with the ultra-modern Japanese lodgings designed for very specific functions:
Capsule Hotels - a plastic coffin just big enough for a human to prepare for bed, watch some TV, and pass out.
Designed for businessmen who are too drunk or out too late to make it home, there's little prevent foreigners or woman from finding a friendly, albiet claustrophobic place to stay. Often these places have marvellous public baths attached.
Love Hotel - rooms for rent for a few hours or overnight, designed for couples, pleasure - some are elaborately themed. For those willing to brave a little bit of harmless sleaze, Love Hotels can be a fascinating bit of anthropology and an amusing, even cheap place to pass a night in Tokyo.
Besides those types of paid lodgings, most of the rest is business hotels and luxury hotels - mostly boring if comfortable.
April of 2001, I went to Japan without a place to stay, figuring that the hunt for lodging is always an immediate adventure.
After my first night's hotel turned out to be expensive and sorta dull, and my second night hotel wasn't available for a third night, I went ahead and decided to stay in a different hotel each night I was in Tokyo. It turned out to be a good way to see much of the city, albiet while I was dragging my luggage along behind me in the snow and rain.
Midway through my trip I discovered that the subway stations each have lockers, so that's a great place to leave your bags without having to drag them around. Also, next time I'm gonna be carrying less with me, whatever I got to leave behind.
In October of 2001, I moved to Tokyo and lived in a small studio apartment, called a "Mansion."
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