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Heard about the capsule hotels of Japan? It's one of those weird Japanese concepts where you feel like you are witnessing a manifestation of a futuristic idea. You know, the type mentioned in books and movies, possibly one where a beefed-up guy wearing an eye-patch is saving the world from robots. Just thought I would throw that in there.
Capsule hotels are what it sounds like. These are hotels that rent out rooms which are basically man-sized containers to willing customers. So you end up with bedding on the floor and a TV and/or radio. And of course, most spots have a panel that lets you set up an alarm and control the lighting in that tiny space. That's it, just the bare necessities to make it through the night. Apparently there is a communal washing up area in a separate section so no on-suite bathroom here.

These hotels make sense for a country that struggles for extra space. Keeping that aside, it is also logical, given their reasoning. Seems like these spots are convenient for folks who travel around for work purposes. Of course you don't want to splash out a lot of money for accommodation when you are always running back and forth. And, given how hectic our work environments have becoming, more and more folks will find themselves traveling back and forth for work purposes …. right? Most of these rooms can be rented out for $30 per night.

That pricing is perhaps the reason why some folks went out and implied that this was a class specific venture. That only folks stuck in a certain situation, with little or no money to spare would bunk at a capsule hotel. That seems like a bit of a half-hearted take on a cultural good, don't you think? I've heard about capsule hotels for a while and my impression was always that lots of folks who are non-pretentious would use it simply because it was convenient. Excuse the rant, but am I the only who thinks that this article relishes the idea of throwing in capsule hotels with their coverage of the poverty situation in Japan?

I found another article about capsule hotels which provide a bit more information about their history and status in Japan. This funky invention is 3 decades old and, like I mentioned earlier, it was created as means of easing travel problems for lots of business types. Actually, if you read this full article, it seems like there are quite a lot of fancy little features (beer vending machine, a bigger communal area to watch TV in, nice bath facilities). I don't know what CNN was going on about …

The biggest complaint with this one is its gender bias. Yea, some of the hotels are just for men. There are many that rent to both genders but it still seems like this invention favors men. I can imagine that some women don't exactly feel safe, living in such close quarters in what might possibly be a co-ed environment. But then again, a lot of youth hostels are sort of structured the same way (shared bath area, dorm type rooms, late night check ins) and if those have proven successful for both genders, why not this one?