I made a recent discovery: love hotels! Not dirty, sleazy hotels on the other side of the tracks, but hotels that are cleaner than a "minshuku," cheaper than a business hotel and located near the main shopping district. What's love got to do with it? Nothing, necessarily.
While minshuku and "ryokan" may offer a traditional Japanese experience, you can also get a uniquely Japanese experience at a love hotel.
What's so Japanese about a love hotel? Although love hotels were invented to cater to the world's oldest profession, and still do, they are not limited to any specific clientele. Almost every Japanese has stayed in a love hotel at one time or another, and for all the right reasons. They're clean, cheap, and accessible. When you consider that the master bedroom in a Japanese house consists of a futon on some straw mats closed off from the rest of the house by paper doors, you begin to realize there has got to be an alternative. After all, Japan has 120 million people. Where are they all coming from?
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