I noticed a plug for Misty Keasler’s book, Love Hotels: The Hidden Fantasy Rooms of Japan. It would certainly make an interesting coffee table book … though you might have to move it went you have your parents over for dinner. Here’s an excerpt from the inner flap:
Only in Japan will you find an institution like the love hotel. Hotels where couples can rent heavily decorated theme rooms by the hour for amourous liasons, love hotels cater to diverse tastes through elaborate decor ranging from subway-car eroticism to space-age bondage. Fascinating in themselves for what they contain, these rooms also present a window into an aspect of Japanese society virtually unheard of in the West.
There are around thirty-five thousand Love Hotels in Japan, which rent rooms by the hour to couples looking for a little privacy. Once called tsurekomi ryokan (drag her/him in hotels), it’s now trendier to call them fashion hotels, in acknowledgment of the fact that it’s usually the more discerning, trend-conscious woman who makes the room choice. All kinds of tastes can be indulged at love hotels, anything from mirror-lined rotating beds to ornate cages. Some rooms even come equipped with video cameras so you can take home a souvenir of your stay.
A stay overnight costs around eight thousand yen. The room fee for two hours during the day is usually a little bit lower, while on weekends, the prices are usually much higher. The reception at a love hotel is very anonymous. The guests choose a room on a board by pressing a button, before paying at a little window where the receptionist can’t be seen.
There’s an excellent article on Love Hotels at Globe and Mail’s Travel site. I also found a first hand account of a stay at a love hotel over at Atlas Magazine. Don’t worry, it’s a PG account.
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