Does Casablanca have snowmen?

I frequently get to pining for Japan.  I actually miss Japan more than my (Japanese) husband does, and I think that is because I wasn't really confined by Japanese society the way he was.  That's a topic for another day. 

When I get to missing Japan, my nostalgia/homesickness often focuses on a few, recurring themes.  Ramen.  Love hotels.  Train station soba.  Papaya Suzuki.  The total hotness of the men there.  My much loved Mt. Fuji.  Pickles.  Oden.  OK, so lots of food.

But today I'm missing the love hotels.  The love hotels of Japan are one of the greatest inventions ever.  They could be Japan's gift to the world, if only the rest of the world would wise up. 

Love hotels have become so popular because there is no privacy in Japan.  People tend to live with their families until they are way, way into adulthood, and the walls are made of fucking rice paper!  Not in the love hotels, though--no, those are serious concrete bunkers.  Yes, yes, certainly love hotels are used for adulterous trysts and for hookups with prostitutes.  But they are also regularly used by legitimate couples, even husbands and wives who just want to get away from their extended family and that goddamned rice paper.

Love hotels are often the cheapest accommodation available if you're a couple (except some hostels).  Of course, you have to be out in the morning, because the room is also rented (for "resting" in, usually, 2- and 4-hour time blocks) during the day. 

Love hotels are very anonymous.  In many of them, you will see no person.  Frequently, there is a board in the lobby that shows pictures of all the rooms; the vacant rooms are lit up.  You choose one based on what you want to pay and what, erm, accoutrements you desire (some of them come with outlandish S&M equipment).  Sometimes you then proceed to pay a set of hands, apparently human, but who knows?  Sometimes you pay a machine.  You go to your room.  The room will nearly always have a huge bathroom, Japanese style, with a deep tub for two (usually with jets) and a large shower.  Sometimes the shower has a see-through wall so that your honey can sit in bed and watch you shower, because nothing is sexier than watching a girl shave her legs.  Sometimes they take this a step further and put odd disco lighting in the shower and so forth.  The room will also have video games, a huge TV (or two), a large bed (yes, a bed rather than a futon), frequently karaoke machines and/or slot machines, and a complete array of toiletries and grooming products, in case this love hotel thing was spur of the moment, and you didn't bring your toothbrush. 

Heh.  When we just moved, my husband and I found a large--but LARGE--collection of toothbrushes saved from various love hotels.  They are all marked with the name of the hotels, so we reminisced a bit.  Or I did.  My husband remembers none of them, although he seems certain that we had a nice time there.

Not that we ever stayed in any love hotels.  No.  Certainly we are chaste and completely not into any love at all.  Yes, my name is Mary.

Anyway, so you can play some videos, watch a big-screen movie, pomade your hair, and gamble.  There will also be condoms there, because the Japanese are nothing if not condom users. 

What I love about them is--oh, all of the above, really, but also that the better love hotels (and, yes, there are definitely better and worse) have a theme.  Because this is Japan we're talking about, the theme is usually totally insane.  There is a chain of love hotels (and it was once my goal to stay at each of them, but we have not yet) called Snowman's.  Each Snowman's has snowmen everywhere.  But each Snowman's also has a subtheme.  One in Osaka is a Casablanca Snowman's and has a gangster theme and red-and-black polka dot wallpaper in all the hallways and feels bordello-ish.  I'm a fan.  I have a picture somewhere of me standing in those halls.  Another Snowman's--I think it is in Otsu--is Spaceman Snowman's or something like that, and there are black-light neon snowmen floating through outer space on all the walls.  There are also plenty of love hotels with a Christmas theme, and I thought that would be righteous, but the one we went to was kind of lame.  Sure, there was a Santa in the lobby, but the room had no Christmas kitsch at all, and so then it's just a big, comfortable room with a huge bath and a vast bed.  It's good, but not really thrilling. 

One of the first love hotels I ever stayed at had some kind of funky neon stars revolving on the ceiling, and, honestly, I thought it was going to give me epilepsy.  But it was still cool.

I haven't really ever stayed in any of the "special" rooms, i.e., those with S&M and bondage gear at the ready, and, to be frank, it skeeves me out to think of using bondage gear that is used by approximately 15 total strangers everyday.  Snowman's also has special rooms that are not bondage oriented but have a sub-sub-theme, like a giant racecar bed or something.  We have never managed to get one of those either.  I think you have to wait in line.

Speaking of which, most love hotels also have a very discreet waiting area, in case your room of choice is occupied when you come (or all the rooms are).  There are all these plush booths where patient lovers can hide away until the glorious time that they can finally go up and feed their money into a machine.  A lot of love hotels also have programs where return customers can get special goodies.  I got this grooming set (again with the grooming)--a couple hairbrushes and whatnot--from the Circus Hotel in Nagoya.  God, the Circus Hotel (or Circus Resort?  something like that...I can still remember exactly how to get to it, and I remember the little dancing elephant mascots) was awesome.

[Heh.  Now, thinking of the Circus is reminding me of this one time, back when ours was still a long-distance relationship, that we couldn't find a room in any of the Sakae, Nagoya, love hotels, so we just ended up walking around all night.  Just walking.  Oh, we got exhausted, but we talked so much and had such a good time.  That's really one of my best memories from Nagoya.  Now that I think of it, we walked all the way to Osu, and then I think we got breakfast there.  It was in July, after the Nagoyako festival, so of course there weren't any rooms.  Man.  Just to walk around with him all night, my future husband--what a sweet memory.]

Ah, love hotels.  I miss them almost as much as I miss the spicy nozawana pickles from Marugen.