Kobe Summer Study Abroad (Capsule Hotels)

During my six week stay, I went Tokyo for a weekend with a handful of other people from the group. From Kobe/Osaka to Tokyo, its about a 2.5 hour bullet train しんかんせん ride. The ticket cost about 14000 yen for one way. This trip to Tokyo wasn't included in the study abroad program so we had to make our own accommodations.
We had to decide where we wanted to stay and which hotel would be best, etc for our price range. So we thought it might be fun to stay in a capsule hotel! If you don't know what a capsule hotel is, it looks kind of like a kennel for dogs?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capsule_hotel

They run about 3500 yen per night and most of them include a small tv and an alarm clock and a shade to pull down for privacy. Your luggage must sit in a locker in the main lobby and the shower/bathroom areas are shared. We thought this would be okay for us if it was in a convenient area.

Unfortunately, a lot of these capsule hotels are not female friendly. These were meant for business men/drunk men in mind, and there are no locks on these capsules, so if a drunk man wanted to climb in your little room during the night, there would be nothing stopping him! If you want to stay in one of these, please make sure it is listed as "female friendly". This is really too bad because my friends and I thought it would be fun experience for Japan ):