love hotels in japan

Hey, so in this video I want to talk about

love hotels in Japan. I'm not sure if you

know what a love hotel in Japan is.

Basically, it's pretty much the same as a

normal hotel, except for the main reason

that people go to a love hotel is not for

traveling, or you wouldn't— let's just say

you wouldn't take your kids or your

children there. You wouldn't go there with

your elderly parents. You wouldn't go

there if you're traveling and you need

somewhere to stay. The main reason people

go to a love hotel is to make love, to

have sex. And I've actually been to a few.

Actually, I've been to a lot in Shinjuku.

In Shinjuku, there's this area where the

whole street is just nothing but love

hotels. It's really shady and conspicuous.

You go there and there's no people.

There's no people because they're all in

the love hotels making love. Anyway, I did

actually go to quite a lot of love hotels

on my third trip to Japan. I met this girl

on the internets and we went to karaoke

and things were going well and things

started to get intimate and then she just

suddenly said, do you want to go to a love

hotel? And I said, okay. So we went to the

love hotel. We went to quite a few. I

think we went to like— we went to one

every 2 days for a couple of months. It

was bloody expensive. They can cost about

£80 to £120 a night depending

on which one you go to.

And love hotels are so nice. I don't

really know how to describe it. It's

basically just like a normal hotel, but

the way they decorate the interior makes

it feel like it's really romantic but kind

of shady at the same time. Like, what's

the word? Like, like you're in like an

'80s porno film. It kind of feels like

that. The furniture and decoration is

really extravagant and luxurious, and the

rooms are massive. They're gigantic. You

get a gigantic bed that has like curtains

that go around it, and you can shut the

curtains, kind of like one of those

princess kind of beds. And in the

bathroom, it's all marble flooring and

It's really hard to describe. You can just

go on Google and type in love hotel,

Japanese love hotel, and look at pictures.

And the shower also had like this steaming

function where you press the button and

the whole room will just fill up with

steam and fog. I guess it's steam. It's

not smoke, is it? If it was smoke, that

would be bad. But that was kind of fun.

You couldn't see anything and it kind of

felt like you were suffocating, but it was

an experience.

They had really nice bathrooms and

showers. And you have to understand that I

was living in the guest house, this shitty

old guest house which was in this gigantic

building. I don't know how old the

building was. The building was like all

the way back from 1950s where everything

was really old, everything was really

dirty. There were cockroaches and rats

everywhere. I had to share a shower. The

shower room was like a shared shower with

other guys. And it was horrible.

Luckily, I'm short-sighted. I need

glasses, and when I go for a shower, I

take my glasses off, so I couldn't see 80%

of the disgustingness. And my bedroom in

the guesthouse was like a coffin. The size

of the bedroom was not much larger than

the size of the single bed. It was tiny.

It was so small you could barely do

anything in it. And again, the inside of

the room was horrible. It was all

run-down. All the furniture was really

old. There were stains on the wall. The

wallpaper was like falling down. And I

went from this, from that guest house,

going from that guest house to this, this

lovely hotel, which sure, it's a love

hotel and it's kind of seedy, but it was

so nice to have a shower with a proper

shower room with a shower that actually

works. You know, the showers in the guest

house were terrible. The water would come

out really weak, like it wasn't powerful.

It was like just dripping on you, and the

water wasn't hot enough. I like to have

really hot showers, and the water— even if

you turn the water up to maximum heat, it

wasn't warm enough, and it was bloody

freezing because I went there in winter.

And then I went from that to going to a

love hotel where there was this amazing

shower that felt like you were standing in

a waterfall, and the water got so nice and

hot And there's lovely queen-size bed and

fully furnished room. It was just so nice,

but it was bloody expensive. It was like

£110 on average for a night,

just one night. But you kind of have to

expect that because it's right bang in the

middle of Tokyo in Shinjuku. Um, what else

is there? The reception in the love hotels

kind of funny because usually you have a

person at reception and you can see them,

you can see their faces, but not in the

love hotel. In the love hotel, there's a

reception, and in front of the

receptionist, there's like this wall of

glass that you can't see through. You

can't see through it. You can't see the

person who's behind you. All you can see

is their hands. Like, when you're handing

over the money or cards, their hands will

come through this slot in the glass and

take it. And I found it really strange

that why can't— why are you hiding our

identities? Why, why not let the

receptionists and the customers see each

other? And that's because the main reason

people go to love hotels is because

they're cheating. They're cheating on

their husband or their wife or their

girlfriend or their boyfriend. And if

you're cheating or committing adultery,

which is— I think it's illegal in Japan.

You can get fined a lot of money. I'm not

sure what that money was called again.

And I guess they want to protect the

identities of the customer and the

receptionist, so they have this glass pane

that you can't see the receptionist, the

receptionist can't see you, and it feels

like you're doing something illegal. So I

guess if cheating is illegal in Japan, I

guess it is kind of illegal. But then it

makes me think, why do they allow these

love hotels to run if If it's obvious that

all its business is coming from people

committing adultery. I'm pretty sure the

person I went with was single, at least

that's what she told me. I have no idea,

maybe she had a boyfriend, maybe she was

married. But we decided to go to love

hotels because, well, I couldn't go back

to her place because, I don't know, maybe

she had a husband. I have no idea, she

didn't tell me. And I didn't really want

to take her back to the guesthouse because

it was a disgusting shithole. So we ended

up going to love hotels. Maybe every

twice, every 2 nights, maybe 4 to 5 times

a week. I don't know how she afforded it,

but she paid for all of it. Maybe she was

rich. I did pay for the food,

which wasn't really expensive, but she

didn't really ask me to pay for the hotel

at any point, so I guess it was okay.

Now, one of the most awkward things is

when you're at reception And there's

another couple at reception and they're

standing behind you waiting. It's so

awkward. It feels like, I know what you

two are here for and you, you two know

what we're here for. We're here to have

sex. And it's so awkward because,

because if you just go to a normal hotel,

there's none of that awkwardness because

people, people go to hotels all the time

just for travel, for somewhere to stay.

But when you go to a love hotel Everyone

knows why you're going to a love hotel.

It's to make love. That's what the whole

name is. I don't know if we have these in

the UK. I'm pretty sure I've never seen a

love hotel in any other country, but it's

so obvious that it's a love hotel. Just

the way it looks from the outside and the

inside. Oh, and the way you choose the

rooms is amazing. You go in, you don't ask

for a room. On the wall, there are loads

of monitors, touch display monitors like

gigantic iPads. And there are pictures of

the room, and it'll say if they're vacant

or occupied. And you just choose your

room, press the button, it will print off

a ticket, and then you take the ticket

over to reception, and then you pay.

It feels so futuristic. I don't know why

they just don't let you pay on the

touchscreen. It would make it a lot easier

if you just get rid of the receptionist

and make it fully automated. And inside

the room of the love hotel, you had all

sorts of things. You had a gigantic TV

which you could also do karaoke on. It had

karaoke built into it, and they had

microphones, and they had loads of stuff

like those tambourine

things and hair straighteners. That's kind

of random, isn't it? But I found it kind

of weird that they have hair straighteners

and irons and ironing boards in the hotel.

And you could do all kind of things with

the lighting. You could dim the lights,

you can change the color to red or purple

or blue. You can really set the mood, set

the atmosphere. And I think

that's pretty much it. There's not really

that much to say about it when you come to

think— when you think about it. Oh, there

are even some love hotels where you could

rent a costume like a maid's costume or

a cat costume. It was really weird that

they had all these sexual things that you

could rent because they, they know what

people are coming there to do, so they

provide all this extra stuff that you

wouldn't usually get in a regular hotel.

No, I didn't try on the cat's costume,

although I was tempted to try on the

maid's costume. I said to her, should we

get the maid's costume? It'll be funny.

She said no, she wasn't interested. I was

kind of disappointed. I wanted to try on

the maid's costume. Why? Why can't I try

on the maid's costume? You have to

experience these things. Anyway, I think

the whole love hotel thing just goes— just

shows how much— how common cheating and

adultery is in Japan. If adultery

and cheating wasn't common, then you would

just have sex in your house, wouldn't you?

You wouldn't spend all that money to go to

a hotel. So in the UK, if you go clubbing

and you pick up a girl, I'm not sure,

what do people do? Do they take them back

to their place or do they go to a hotel?

I feel like there's such a huge demand for

a private place to spend time with someone

where you don't want to get found out.

You want to keep your identity private.

And, um, there must be so many people in

Japan that are cheating on their partners

that this love hotel industry was able to

spring up where the entire focus, the

whole point of having love hotels, is for

people to have sex in. I find it kind of

strange. We don't have that in the UK. We

have regular hotels, which I guess some

couples would just go to if they want to

have sex. It happened in the hotel that I

was working in. I used to work in this

hotel, a small little one. It only had

about 10 rooms. Sometimes you'd get a

couple that would book a room in the

middle of the day just to have sex, and

you could hear it all going on, and then

they'd leave after a few hours. They

wouldn't even stay the night. Maybe

there's a lot of cheating that goes on in

Japan because maybe the men— maybe it's

because the men are working too much.

They work until 10 PM. They're always 100%

focused on work. Maybe they're not giving

enough attention to their wives or their

girlfriends, and they get bored and they

look for someone else, and they don't want

to get divorced or break up, so they just

find some random guy to have fun with and

go to a love hotel. Or maybe guys are the

same. Maybe they get fed up with their

wife or their girlfriend, and you know,

it's easy to just find someone and then go

to a love hotel. Your identities are

protected. It's, um, relatively affordable

and it's a really nice place to go. It's

not like a disgusting, rundown, horrible,

scummy place. It's really classy and

luxurious. By the way, Shinjuku is

disgusting in the morning. In the night it

looks amazing because it's all dark and

all the neon signs are lit up and it looks

beautiful and amazing. But then the

morning comes and then the daylight

reveals All the, all the filth. All the

drunk people are like lying wasted on the

street, lying in their own puke. There's,

there's just puke everywhere because

everyone's been drinking so much. They

just throw up all over the place. And then

the daylight comes, the sun comes out,

and it just, it reveals all the ugliness.

I guess it's like going to a nightclub and

then you meet a really nice girl who's

wearing a lot of makeup. And then you take

her home, and then the next morning comes

and she's washed off all the makeup, and

you're like, whoa, you look completely

different. So yeah, that was my little

story about love hotels, my experience.

If you're going to Japan and you have a

partner, or you find a partner, I would

recommend going to one at least once

because it's a lot of fun. It's a unique

experience that I don't really think

a lot of countries offer.