Tokyo, encapsulated

First stop: Capsule Hotel Asakusa Riverside. [for readers who don't use the internet much: when you see text with a different colour, like that hotel name, you can click on it to go to another web page with more information -- then just click the 'back' button on your browser to get back here.].
For a mere 3,000 yen (Cdn$30), I had the pleasure of sleeping in this bowling alley of sleeping-shoeboxes. Each is just big enough for one person.

Despite there being a person at the reception desk, payment for the rooms is done at a vending machine. You might think that this would be helpful for the language barrier. Think again.
Toshi later tells me that the buttons offer things like meals, bath (if you want to use their Japanese-style hot tub -- which has a view of the river and a balcony -- without actually staying there), and socks, at various prices.

Free with the room, however, is a pair of slippers (you don't get more than one step inside the hotel before you remove, or if you're like me, being gesticulated at to remove, your shoes) and a light cotton garmet called a yukata. It's actually a two-piece affair, and the effect is part pyjama, part kimono, part surgical scrubs, and part Punjabi women's trousers-with-chemise combo. This is me, inside the 200 cm long capsule. It was fun, a very Japanese experience, but probably not for everyone. I already love Tokyo, at this point, and all I've seen is the hotel.