While I was visiting my boyfriend in Japan, I had a special request which was to visit a Love Hotel.

Now don't give me dirty smiles - it was purely out of curiosity and almost like visiting a "tourist destination". Purely educational.

Eherm.

So during our last few nights we headed down to Shibuya which is apparently "Love Hotel Heaven". It's also where the infamous Love Hotel Hill is located. Trust me, I was really excited to experience it. Where else in the world can something so shady be so openly public and interesting? Truly Japan at its finest.

I did some googling and was delightfully surprised at how clean and un-shady these Love Hotels looked. Many of them had themed-rooms, a jacuzzi, costumes for rent, and were a lot pricier than Hotel 81. LOL.

A 20 minute walk off from the glitzy shopping malls and restaurants took us to a dimly lit street with giggling couples, drunk youths, and curious tourists. At first everything looked quite decent and the surrounding hotels looked like normal with nothing out of the ordinary. Walking deeper into the street, we started noticing building entrances with signs promoting rooms by the hour, with hotel "lobbies" that looked seemingly empty.

We even saw one couple (in the late thirties?) peek out from behind a wall before walking out to the street. SHADE ALERT.

Anyway, we hopped from one Love Hotel to another. Many rooms were full (on a weekday night!) and most check ins could be done via a machine to limit face-to-face interaction. Some Love Hotels don't welcome foreigners as well, so it took us about 30-45 minutes before we finally settled with Hotel Sulata - a fancy, resort-looking hotel.

Upon entering, Hotel Sulata actually looks like a regular hotel. This one had a regular check in counter - (not the self-check in kind), so we had to talk to an actual person. It was a little awkward, but we managed to get a room for 2 hours for ~ S$40.

We were told to go to the "waiting area" which was just a bunch of love seats for couples. There was also this creepy looking robot-musician at the corner playing the piano, and a cafe called Cafe De Sulata in the lobby. We went through a couple of channels on the mini TV screen in front of us, and after 15 minutes it was finally our turn!

So first things first - the room was amazing.

It was clean, classy, modern, and had so many facilities!

We were extremely excited about the jacuzzi, and immediately hopped in. You could even watch TV while you were in, and there were all kinds of channels from food to the ones you'd only watch late at night with the volume down...

We also scoured the room for anything interesting, and interesting did we find! From the mini karaoke booth, to the lingerie menu and automatic toilet, everything exceeded our wildest expectations of what a Love Hotel would look like. There was even a vibrator in the room, which got me all giggly because I've never seen one before.

Two hours later the phone rang to remind us that our time was up. Being the Singaporean cheapos we were, we took a few hotel slippers and toiletries.

To summarize this whole exciting experience, staying in a Love Hotel was not like anything we've experienced before. It was actually really proper and nothing to be ashamed about. Most married couples stayed with their in-laws, and it was normal to crave some alone time with the person you love!

I won't deny that I did have a bit of a culture shock, but I'm really glad that I got to try this once in a lifetime experience. I may actually consider staying in a Love Hotel for a few days the next time I come back to Japan!

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