Capsule Hotel Fun

I had to. I just had to. Where else in the world can you sleep in your own plastic tube? My "room" number was 8-16. Floor eight is reserved for women, marked by a sign that reads "keep out, man". Which man is not allowed remains unknown. I forgot to count the number of units were piled bee-comb like into the hall, but I'm sure the owners of the Capsule Hotel Riverside (you can actually see the river) are cleaning up nicely at 300 yen (about $30) a head. I'm estimating you can cram about 160 people into the building, which is super, well, skinny, as you might imagine. It makes sense that in such a packed city that hotels should take up as small amount of land as possible. Luggage is stored in lockers, since there's pretty much just enough room for a reclined person. Laying down, (crouching is almost out of the question), I can touch the ceiling and all the walls with my feet and arms at once, cause I'm tall and all, as some of you may have observed. It looks like the inside of a spaceship, with lots of buttons and practically no seams or blemishes in the gleaming white plastic. Inside, there is a mirror, a television mounted into the ceiling, a small shelf where the light switch, TV and radio controls and an alarm are molded into. The door is a roll-up curtain, and I'm lucky the others didn't snore, but I'm sure it would have been ok since I'm still on "orchard time", 6 am to a truly pathetic 8:30 pm.
I spent the night trying to swing my internal clock to a 20-something backpacker acceptable timetable, so I took on a manga kissa. Manga is Japanime comic books, and kissa is short for kissaten, which is Japanese for cafe. Its basically a floor half filled with cubicles, half with bookshelves holding manga, DVDs and video games. You rent a cubicle for a disgusting 400 yen for 30 minutes, which contains a comfy recliner and a spiffy computer. They're open for 24 hours, and there's a special price if you stay for 8 hours, which is ideal if you miss the last train home after a night out in Roppongi and need a place to crash that's cheaper than a taxi home, or if you're nerd. I checked my email and watched Dark Knight and took advantage of the free drinks, dispensed by an absurd number of vending machines.