New accommodation!

Today was the day we moved out of Taka's, and into our new place of residence for the next week: Kawase Hotel「カワセホテル」 in Asakusa「浅草」.

The morning involved lots of packing, re-packing, checking and double checking everything until we figured anything left behind wasn't worth keeping. Once we left we didn't want to come back to Taka's again.

Taka had already gone out, and Jason was working-- neither of them had bothered to even say goodbye to us anyway, so not having them there was probably a good thing. It was just Ben, myself and Taka's mother. Oh, and the stupid dog.

We were checking into the hotel at 4:00pm so we had to take the 3:30 bus to Moriya station, then the train from there to Asakusa. Taka's mum didn't even offer to drive us to the station-- even though she saw how many bags we had, and how heavy they were. She was too busy playing with the dog to give us a lift.

I was glad when the dog popped out a huge turd on her floor just before we left. Suffer in your lazy knickers.

On our way out she said goodbye-- at least someone did. We did the whole Japanese thing with the repeated thank-yous and goodbyes and so on, and left.

A bus and train ride later, followed by some confused walking around Asakusa lead us to Kawase Hotel, just as it started pouring rain. Lucky. We checked-in, elevatored to the third floor and entered our room.

Inside were eight capsules, roughly 2m by 1m, each with a curtain over the opening. There were lockers to store your valuables in next to the capsule. Inside the capsule was a TV, a radio and a light, plus a little control panel with buttons to adjust these facilities. Towels, washcloths and a light yukata were tucked away inside the lockers.

We were the only ones in the dorm, which was pretty cool.

On the second floor is the bathroom. Check that: public bathroom. Four showers lined up, no walls, but shampoo and body wash is provided. A Japanese style bath (called an o-furo, 「お風呂」) is at one end, filled to the brim with ridiculously hot water to loosen muscles knotted from walking around all day, and a sauna at the other, for steamy fun times.

After unpacking our bags and making sure everything was secure and in order we went for a walk around the area, hunting for possible dining locations for the upcoming week.

Tempura for dinner, then returned home, to sleep in a bed that was [thankfully] more comfortable than a ridiculously thin futon on the floor, like we had at Taka's house.