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Living In Tokyo's Capsule Hotels
afabbro writes "Capsule Hotel Shinjuku 510 once offered a night’s refuge to salarymen who had missed the last train home. Now with Japan enduring its worst recession since World War II, it is becoming an affordable option for people with nowhere else to go. The Hotel 510’s capsules are only 6 1/2 feet long by 5 feet wide. Guests must keep possessions, like shirts and shaving cream, in lockers outside of the capsules. Atsushi Nakanishi, jobless since Christmas says, 'It’s just a place to crawl into and sleep. You get used to it.'”
I do feel for the poor chaps who must do it, but personally, I do this _every_ chance I get. Longest was about 2 weeks. I actually prefer capsules to conventional hotels: nice long saunas, a chance to meet and hang out with interesting people (rather than holing up in a room), it forces you to stay out (again, so you don't stay holed in), and you can't beat the price: $25-$35 a night, right in the middle of all the action.
You could also do pretty much the same at Internet Cafes. I've found the accommodation (couch+cubicle+snacks+internet+manga+games) to be far better than even most first-class flight cabins. You still need your everyday clothes on, so I'd stay there max 2 days.
Tip: best way to visit Japan: travel very light. Buy shaving supplies, soap, t-shirts, etc. at the local combini or 99 yen store. Instead of spend money at a single hotel, spend it traveling to different parts of the country: danjiri festival here, live music there, temple over there, robots over there, party over here. All without luggage to slow you down.
When I traveled to Japan I ended up staying in a capsule hotel for one night. The problem (and only problem) I had with them is the fact that they allow smoking. Almost every japanese male (male only btw) smokes, as one of my old japanese coworkers said "You aren't a man if you don't smoke". Well, when you have 510 people smoking in a very very small building it becomes not only disgusting but I got really sick from it. After that day I stopped smoking, and haven't lit up since.
WTF Slashdot, why do I have to login 50 times to post?
Actually, Japan's population has been going down for a long time, and in fact that's one of their problems.
Now it makes sense that a friend in the Navy told me, everyone with half a brain tries to get on a carrier instead of a sub.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
They aren't going to increase the Japanese population talking to women like that. One of the reasons why Japan is in the population fix it's in is because women have decided "Screw it, I'm having too much fun being single, and being a married woman is akin to a season in Hell anyway, especially if you are married to a First Son, so I'm going to live with my parents and spend my money on fashion and Host Clubs and Yaoi doujinshi."
The reason why women make the choice to become a "parasite single" is not just a rebellion against society's expectations of being a "good wife and good mother," but it has a lot to do also with the economic situation that pretty much started with the end of the Showa era and the beginning of the Heisei era. When the bubble economy burst in 1990, the earning power of the Japanese male burst as well. The old assumptions collapsed. You didn't graduate a prestigious university and get a job for life. Much of the excesses of Sarariman life was forgiven because, well, he would bring home the salary. Now, after the burst of the bubble economy, employment was scarce and tenuous.
Marriage had long ago evolved from a business arrangement between families to a partnership arrangement between a man and a woman -- love usually was way down the list even during the go-go '70s and '80s -- so the economic viability of the potential husband determined his marriageability. With so many young men graduating from university without the guarantees their fathers and grandfathers have, you wind up with with lots of single men and single women.
There is a huge stigma against birth out of wedlock in Japan, way more than in the West. So the economic and social situation means birth rates have plummeted.
You cannot simply wish away the current situation, or sloganize it away. This is the result of a social collapse unprecedented in Japanese society.
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