KID ETHNIC IS WRITTEN BY:
saleem
who is currently moving around East Asia.
kidethnic@gmail.com
ALSO BY KID ETHNIC:
The Alpaca Song
I wrote and recorded this for you. Because you <em>need</em> a song about alpacas, don’t you?
SEAWEED BREAKFAST
A weekly column about Japan that I wrote for Glimpse.org.
Twitter
I twitter infrequently. But hope we can stay friends.
The Whiteboard Videos
Music+Whiteboard Markers+Friends=Good ways to spend weekends
100JapaneseThings
A collaborative site to help folks (and each other) find Japanese stuff.
The Annual Kid Ethnic Valentine
Because I love you so much.
Ornery White Guy and the Tokyo Capsule Hotel · 7 April 05
Early one Sunday morning, someone grabs your toe. You sit up and look down the length of your sleeping pod.
Who’s grabbing your toe?
Why, it’s Ornery White Guy.
‘Aw, man, Ornery White Guy, why’d ya have to grab my toe? What time is it anyway? Ooh, I know, I’ll check my watch!’
You lift your left arm toward your capsule’s ceiling. But:
Oh, that’s right. You replaced your watch with a plastic band that identifies your capsule number and holds your capsule key.
Capsule key, capsule number… Where are you again? Ah, yes. The Century Capsule Hotel and Sauna of Tokyo’s Ueno district, where you pay $36 bucks a night for a clean robe and towel combo, entrance to a public bath (no cameras allowed) and a slot in a radioactive man-size bee’s dream home.
It’s just you and a bunch of old, half-drunk salarymen. And some ornery white guy.
But don’t let that get you down. There’s enough room for you to sit up and smile. Trust me.
You can still be happy here.
FOOTNOTE: Why, you may ask, is that particular white guy so ornery? Well, maybe it’s because he’s about 6’1”. And the capsule’s about 6’2”.
Which, given the need for a pillow, leaves not so much room for stretching out. Be warned.
And, incidentally, means he might be likely to roll into the side of his capsule rather suddenly, occasionally startling the tan encapsulated gentleman in the capsule to his right.
(Details on the Century Capsule Hotel can be found in this extremely sketchy guide to Tokyo’s weird/darkside. A hilarious, useful, and not so family-friendly read.)
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