The Landlady on inconvenient conveniences
After a recent trip to Japan with my friend N and The Small Daughter, I have surmised that Japan is a long way to go for just a week. Because you effectively miss the night, then have to stay awake all day on the outbound flight, The Small Daughter suffered on the first day, went to bed at 5.30pm, then woke up at 2.45 in the morning. She lay there twiddling her thumbs until N woke at 6am and I – surpassing all previous expectations – awoke at a very tardy 9.30am, which was rather late considering that we had to check out of the hotel by 10am. The room at the hotel was so small that, once you’d rolled out the futon-style beds, there was no space in the room at all, meaning that to go to the loo, those furthest from the door had to clamber over everyone else’s bed in order to get there. My friend N and I could touch both walls with our heads and feet while lying in bed.
“I flouted the ‘toilet slipper’ rule on several occasions”
I have to admit that our room sizes increased as our trip progressed and our final room was a football pitch of a place in comparison to the first two.
It had sliding doors which opened onto a zen garden with a fish pond full of carp… well, we saw at least two. Considering it was in a downtown area of Tokyo, it was marvellously peaceful and the only downside was our host, who seemed to spend every waking hour watching the footage on the CCTV cameras strategically positioned around the house, which was a little weird. There was also a curfew in place at this particular guest house and we had to be in by 11.30pm, which might have been a little inconvenient had The Small Daughter not been with us. We did try to work out if we could ninja our way round the side of the house and over the tiny bridge across the fishpond to our room, but feared that the trees in the garden might also be hiding CCTV cameras, which would be scrutinised by our strange host. We had to pay for our accommodation in cash and, having tried 12 cashpoints, eight of which didn’t work and four of which were only in Japanese, so I couldn’t work them even if they did accept my card, I tried to exchange some English money at a Bureau De Change. The giggling employees gathered around my British notes, pointed and laughed a lot, then claimed that they only accepted Euros and American dollars. Bah!
The only other inconvenience were the conveniences, where, especially in our last guest house, we had to remove the ‘house slippers’ we’d just put on at the front door and put on the ‘toilet slippers’, if we needed to use the facilities. I have to say that fannying around with slippers of any variety is not my favourite pastime, especially at 3am, so I’m afraid I flouted the ‘toilet slipper’ rule on several occasions. I wonder if our host noticed this on his examination of the CCTV footage?
