I bet most of you have already read or heard about capsule hotels in Japan. Those hotels, where you don’t sleep in your own room, but instead sleep in a plastic box in a room with many of those, called capsules. They usually feature a few technical amenities such as a television and the stereotypical customer is the Japanese salaryman on a business trip.

But as some of them are really cheap and can even compete with hostels, I gave it a try and stayed in a capsule hotel in Asakusa on my trip to Tokyo last week. It was located directly next to Asakusa station and from the public bath in the 8th floor, you had a really beautiful view over the Sumida River and towards the famous Asahi Building, as well as the soon to be completed Tokyo Sky Tree. So obviously I went up there every evening, went to the sauna, took a hot bath  and enjoyed the sight from there.

But back to the capsules. I was actually a bit surprised how spacious those seemed to me, as I hadn’t expected to be able to sit upright in one, which was perfectly possible. Space to the sides was also no problem at, only the length would have been more comfortable had it been 5-10cm more. The way it was, my feet were constantly scratching at the curtain, which closed my capsule once I was inside. The television presented me with 10 Japanese TV channels for free every evening, so no need for complaints there as well.

And now please have a look at a few pictures

久しぶり！I’m back for more articles and blogging from Japan, thanks for your patience As promised, I’ll cover Tokyo this time! Tokyo and the surrounding cities are the biggest urban area in the world as far as I know and as such are special and unique by just this fact alone. It’s a vast area of concrete mountains, towers and valleys stretching as far as one can see and taking your breath away.  While Osaka was already huge, it’s nothing compared to Tokyo in my impression.

I’ve been to Tokyo in the beginning of September for a few days, before going up to Mt. Fuji and we spent some time in the city and seeing different parts of it, ranging from the Imperial Palace to the Tokyo Tower at night. During these days we saw a tiny fraction of the huge metro and train network of the city… man, it’s endless! While getting along with choosing trains from two different metro companies and the JR train network was working out ok, running through stations to get from the section of one company to another company’s platforms was like running through a labyrinth sometimes. This might have to do with the bad explanation on some signs too, but mostly the feeling came from sheer endless tunnels winding themselves through the underground like worms. Worms made of concrete and with a bad interior design.

That said, I was actually more positively surprised by Tokyo. I imagined that I wouldn’t really like it because of the sheer size and huge amount of people living there (actually the amount of people sometimes was very annoying, truth be told). But in reality I found the city to be a very enjoyable and interesting place with many beautiful spots and nice locations to discover. Still, I wouldn’t want to live there for a longer period of time, but I was definitely positively surprised.

But as I imagine writing about it in a diary style would be a bit boring, I decided to give you a nice overview with pictures I made there and then give you some enjoyable highlights, which are more interesting. Please enjoy my view on Tokyo!

Tokyo Spotlight 1: Elvis ain’t dead!

Tokyo Spotlight 2: Shopping oddities

Tokyo Spotlight 3: Tokyo Tower

Tokyo Spotlight 4: Akihabara

One evening, we went to the Tokyo Tower, a 333meters high steel construction and so far the highest building in Japan, only to be surpassed by the Tokyo Sky Tree next year. We could have gone up to enjoy the view from one of the two platforms, but with 800 and 1500 Yen respectively for the entrance fee, we decided against it. Instead we just enjoyed the beautiful site of the orange and illuminated tower in front of the dark sky.