COOL IMAGES

This particular Capsule Hotel is located near Kabukicho (red light district) in the Shinjuku area of Tokyo. It allows only men. It cost Y3,800 for the "room" and bath. Massages are available for an additional Y3,300 for 40 minutes. It's on the 6th floor of a building and is called Big Lemon. It's open 24 hours and you can leave and come back as you wish.









They speak a little English and foreigners are welcome. You can store your luggage behind the counter. You pay at a vending machine and hand the ticket to the clerk. They give you a capsule number and locker key and wrist band. When you are in for the night, you change in the locker room and wear the small yukata around the facility. Upstairs is a shower and sento bath. There is a restaurant and small bar as well. Beside that is a TV room with several lazy boy chairs. Technically you could pay only Y1,200 for the sento and sleep in the lazy boy chairs as many people were doing.









Since most visitors to a Capsule hotel are Japanese business men who don't have time to go home, there are amenities there for people who didn't plan on staying away from home. You can shave, brush your teeth, take a bath, buy shirts, pants, belts, ties, undershirts. Not sure if there is overnight dry-cleaning, but I wouldn't doubt it. Check out was around 9 and starting at 7am they made public announcements reminding people to get up and get out. There were about 150 capsules in this facility. Some have 600+ in Shinjuku.















There are many buttons and knobs in the capsule. One turns on the light and a knob dims the light. One turns on the TV, another button flips through the channels. There is a big red button that costs Y300 to press. That's the porn button. There is a radio and an alarm clock built in. At the end of the capsule there is a screen you can pull down to "lock" yourself in. The entire capsule was about 6 to 6.5 feet long. I am 6 foot 3ish and I had to lie diagonally, but I was able to sleep. The building was slightly warmer than I prefer. I wish there were individual heaters/coolers in each capsule.