My first capsule hotel experience, Osaka

From one accommodation extreme to the next...Saturday night spent in a temple with monks in the mountains of the beautiful and serene Koyasan and Sunday night in a quirky capsule hotel smack bang in the middle of "America-town" in the bustling Osaka. You have to love Japan!

My bed, top floor

For anyone who has no idea what a capsule hotel is, its basically a type of hotel in Japan with extremely small rooms (aka capsules). They're usually men only but some have a ladies floor. They were initially designed for men too inebriated to travel home or to embarrassed to face their spouses. The best thing is that they're super cheap, like around £20 per night. Some people in Japan even rent them on a monthly basis as they're so cheap.

Once we entered our capsule (http://www.asahiplaza.co.jp/) we put our "outdoor" shoes into lockers and checked in no probs. I had initially expected some kind of unmanned reception with vending machines that spit out your keys (this is the case for some capsules) but there were actually humans there to check us in, wow! Locker keys in hand we went down to our ladies floor which we accessed via a key. Once inside, we went to find our capsules, all very exciting!

Home for the night, look like morgue chambers don't they?

They weren't half as small and claustrophobic as I thought they would be although it did look like we'd just walked into a scene from CSI, these morgue type chambers stacked up both sides, spooky!

Mine was at the top so I had a little ladder to help me get in.Once I crawled inside it really wasn't that small, I could sit up easily and mine had a built in TV inside, pretty darn cosy if you ask me! No doors of course, just a screen that you pull down for privacy.

I also thought it would be like a noisy hostel full of young drunken travellers running about everywhere but no. It was so quiet, everyone respects the need for peace and quiet. When we first saw our capsules though, we did get a bit over excited and started taking pictures of each other hanging out of our capsules remarking on "how lucky it was no-one was about". To our dismay, some girl shouted out in English "I am" Well that taught us! We didn't make a sound after that.

Kari and I squeezed into her capsule (silently of course!)

On the ladies floor there is was a locker area where you have to store all of your stuff. They even give you pyjamas, a yukata (summer kimono) and a towel! There was a relaxation room, a sauna and sento (small bath) room for freshening up and a huge vanity area. All you need really! We got ready for our night on the tiles in Osaka and went out wondering whether the ladder up to my capsule might turn into a challenge after a few drinks...

5am, 9 hours later...Crawled into our capsules amazingly managing not to fall up or down the ladder. Had a wonderfully peaceful sleep in my little capsule for the night!

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Good Times in Osaka: Shinsaibashi 11 hour Bar Crawl

Haven't been out for a few weeks now (cross training since the old knee is bad at the mo) so felt like I earnt a night out in Osaka.

With a bar map in hand we headed out to an area of Shinsaibashi around 8. Started at Murphy's, an Irish bar (believe it or not!) on the 5th floor of this building. Very weird experience arriving at an Irish bar via a lift but despite it being a bar it still had an Irish feel with guiness everywhere, bar mats tacked to the walls and even the token very hungover, red cheeked Irish barman. We got lucky as it was live music night and this Japanese band equipped with harpiscord, banjos the lot came on and played some fantastic irish folk music. Another bizarre experience but fun.

We then headed to Wax 69, a pea sized bar with a well nice, chatty American owner Jessie who used to be a teacher (what gaijin isn't in Japan?!) so we had a good old bitch about teaching over some nachos and delicious salsa.

Next stop we headed to LA Gumbo. OK sorry rewind, when we were heading to Murphys a big black American guy who looked like Britneys bouncer had tried to get us to go into his new bar, we took a flier and walked off. So forward back to present and we decided to check it out. God where do I start!

LA Gumbo, Osaka. Note cheesy Diana Ross poster in background & guy with doo-rag!

In Japan a lot of the bars are on different levels of a multi level blocks so once you've committed to get in the lift to the 9th floor and opened the door theres not really much backing out..! LA Gumbos was quiet to say the least but it turns out that Britneys bouncer lookalike is the owner, a lovely one too from Louisiana. He gave us some amazing homemade cornbread on the house (usually a cover charge of ￥1000) and then serenaded us with some smooth jazz....ooh yeah baby!

The place had that 80's vibe, cream leather sofas, loads of cheesy posters of Michael ,Whitney and Diana in their hey days and his stuck in times looking mate fashioning a doo-rag!

Brilliant 80's cheese. LA Gumbos, Osaka.

Loved it though as the owner was such a sweetie, I would have felt totally fine going there on my own.

Next stop decided to head back to the building where Wax 69 was as Jessie's friend owns another bar on that floor called Karma Sutra. It was around 12 at this point. Met the lovely bartender who got me into shark vodka (Shark is the japanese equivalent to Red Bull) Then the karaoke came out and I destroyed Dolly Parton's 9-5, Fat Bottomed Girls, Twist & Shout and Rock the Kasbah whilst the angelic penelope cruz look a like bar girl sang Chicago and had the male testosterone levels raise the roof. We left around 3, thats what karaoke does to you!

Karaoke at Karma Sutra, Osaka

On the way home we passed a club called Sam & Daves. Brilliant! All I could think of was Jaquelines in Ross, how could it not be as cheesy? Well we only really went down the stairs to see how much it was. Bargain ￥1000 yen which included a free drink for the ladies, wooo! It didn7t disappoint. Having not danced to some cheese for 7 months, I felt like a nun on the run. Apart from the weirdo who declared his undying love for Raquel we managed to danced our socks off until 7am and then guess what, went for the kebab equiavelent in Japan, a curry! (or ramen but in this instance curry)

Fab night all round but felt rough the next day and discovered a blister the size of golf ball on my foot the next morning, OUCH!

Good Times in Osaka: Temozan & the Touchy-Feely Pet Garden

Touchy-Feely Pet Gardern!

Just had a fantastic time in Osaka wioth Raquel. I must admit this trip wan't particularly cultural but sometimes you just have an urge to visit an Irish pub, order a BLT from an English menu, dance to some cheesy Eurotrash and shop. So guess what we did at the weekend? I would like to mention though that we did try to do some culture and went to the Kabuki theatre (traditional Japanese theatre) but nothing was on! (and this is the 3rd biggest city in Japan?!)

Anyway, we spent Saturday shopping for Christmas gifts (yep I'm starting early as I now have a crap salary) at Tempozan Harbour Village, a waterfront shopping area with a huge ferris wheel, an aquarium, an IMAX theatre and boat cruise operators.

In the middle of our shop we stumbled upon this indoor farm inside the shopping centre, well to be exact they hilariously called it "The Touchy-Feely Pet Gardern" (I so love Japanglish) It was the cleanest "pet garden" I've ever seen though still had that farmyard poo smell. I felt at home!
The funniest thing was watching the farm attendant (a glammed up Japanese girl who really didn't look like she enjoyed getting her hands dirty) clean up some fresh droppings from the hayless sheep pen and then finishing it up with one of those dettol wipes, hehehe. I had to laugh, it just couldn't be more different than home, see video below!

After trying out some Osaka's special "takoyaki" octopus balls in the shopping centre we headed back to our hotel in town to get ready for our night painting the tiles red.