I stayed in TWO traditional Japanese Capsule hotels in Tokyo! How do they work? Why do people stay there? I give a full tour! Tokyo is a great city and these places saved some money!

Follow us on Instagram:
What’s Inside: https://www.instagram.com/whatsinside
Lincoln: https://www.instagram.com/linkpie/
Claire: https://www.instagram.com/claires.markham
London: https://www.instagram.com/londonmarkham/
Leslie: https://www.instagram.com/akinlane/
Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/whatsinside
Like us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/whatsinsidethings

Filmed in 4k on this camera: http://amzn.to/1UnXI82

Music from Epidemic Sound. Sign up here for access to their music library: http://share.epidemicsound.com/pcFwF

– Today I’m going to stay inside of two capsule hotels in Tokyo, Japan. One of them is futuristic made of plastic, looks like a spaceship capsule. And the second one is a more traditional, men only, capsules made out of wood, hotel that even offers free rice. This is very, very popular.

Most of these capsules are sold out this entire weekend around town. But I did find this three hour gap at this specific Nine Hours. And this only cost me 2000 yen, which at today’s prices is 13 US dollars. To put into perspective how inexpensive that is, just this Uber ride,

Convert 5,400 yen to USD, is 5,400 yen, which is 35 US dollars at today’s exchange rates. So it’s more than double the cost of my three hour stay at the capsule hotel. I did reach out to management and they told me I am allowed to film inside of there. I just cannot talk.

I have to be very, very quiet. Like when I’m in my capsule I can whisper to you guys, but other than that, I can’t really talk too much. From the second you walk into the hotel lobby, you can’t help but feel like you need to talk quietly. I don’t know.

Capsule number 4 1 5. Got it. We have the girls elevator and the men’s elevator and shower. Okay, let’s go up. Oh, I gotta do this. We are going to, oh you just, and then it knows. Check-in process was not super smooth. We got it figured out. 414, 415 probably right there.

There’s the garbage, slippers. Oh, these are like cubbies. So the first area that you come to is these little cubbies that you can get one with your room. So if I’m number 415, use my barcode, it unlocks it. I have a bag. What is inside the bag? Pajamas? A towel. Slippers.

Dude, they give you pajamas? I didn’t expect that. $13 is what I spent for this. Definitely putting these on and I hope they fit a six foot three American. Please remove your shoes. Oh, that was the wrong foot. When I finally got into the room where all the capsules were located,

It was honestly kind of surreal walking down the hallway and seeing all the capsules. There’s a window at the end of the room that looks out into Tokyo. The first capsule hotel in the world opened in 1979 and was in Osaka, Japan.

From there it spread to a bunch of other cities within Japan and now there are capsule hotels in many places of the world. Once you climb in, you can close your curtain for privacy. Now your little door can be locked, but it can only be locked from the inside.

I would say it’s pretty comfortable inside of here. Like I’m really tall, totally stretched out with my legs, I have room here, and from there. I read somewhere that it was nine feet. I would say it’s more like seven feet, six foot eight maybe. Your actual capsule or pod or guest room

Is basically a chamber that’s roughly the size of a bed with enough room for you to crawl in, lay down or sit up. Some of them are made out of wood or metal, but they’re most often made out of fiberglass or plastic. Wow, okay. We’ve made it into the capsule.

I feel like I’m in the ’70s with all this wooden wall and like brown stuff. Look at the door right there. Somebody is sleeping above me so I should probably be quiet. Most of the capsule hotels that you’ll find generally include a small television with headphones for you to listen to it,

Some form of air conditioning or air ventilation. As soon as I put in the button, the air conditioning turns on. Wow. That’s really, really nice. Power consoles for you to plug in your devices. And it was crazy. Both of the places that I stayed in had the fastest internet.

Gigabit internet up and down. That’s not even something that I experienced when I stay at a Hilton hotel in Japan. It’s faster than the wifi that’s at my house. So super impressed with that. Now you can hear almost everything going on in the room from all the different people that are staying

In the capsules. Now kind of like a hostile, a lot of the amenities are community shared, like the toilets, the showers, the dining room. Wow, they have laundry machines up here? That’s legit. And the older version capsule hotel I stayed in even had a community bath and sauna.

Now I didn’t film inside of there because nobody was wearing clothes. But if you are gonna go into the community baths, beware if you do have tattoos, they are frowned upon. The older school place that I stayed in actually had these bookshelves. I thought they were DVDs,

But then once I got closer, I pulled one of them off, and they’re like little Japanese comic books. Around Japan, you can find different sizes of capsule hotels. They have some that have 50 beds inside of them and they have some that go up to 700 beds.

And even though this capsule hotel had spots for women and men across Japan, capsule hotels primarily cater to men. Your clothes and your shoes are supposed to be exchanged for a yukata, which is basically pajamas. This is the locker room on the second floor. A little bit odd, but this is where

You get your outfits. Roomwear. Hmm. I know they have these brown clothes. I don’t really feel like wearing them. I think I’m gonna pass on that and just go to my room. Now, I wore pajamas in one of the hotels, but I didn’t wear it in the other one

Because honestly, I was too tired and didn’t even want to go change. I’m on the third floor. It’s time to go in. Let’s see how we do it here. Why would somebody want to stay inside of a capsule hotel? Well, the main benefit is they’re convenient and they have a low price.

Typically they cost around $18 to $36 a night in US dollars. Now, I booked the traditional one last minute, like an hour before, and it did cost me around $100. But to be fair, all of the hotels around Tokyo Station were going for 400 to 800 US dollars for the night.

So I was more than happy to spend the $100 on this capsule room. And did I mention I get free rice? The interesting thing is the stereotypical person that stays inside of these capsule hotels are Japanese employees who are too drunk to go all the way home safely,

Or they missed the last train of the day to get home and they’re too embarrassed to get home super late and see their spouses. Check out of the capsule hotel was at noon. I stayed until 11:45, which gave me the chance to see them cleaning up all the capsules.

They took out the entire bed, all the sheets, and swapped them out with fresh new ones. First thing, it is very inexpensive, so a great price for you if you just want to get some sleep. I like to sleep with white noise and there is no way you could turn on

A white noise sound machine. That would be considered too much noise for the people inside of the other pods ’cause they would all hear it. You would have to wear headphones in order to listen to it. The use case for these would be amazing inside of airports.

It would be so much better if they have these inside of the main secure area so that you can sleep for a little bit longer, especially when you’re in a foreign country and not have to like go out of security and customs and then come all the way back through

And have them question you. What were you doing for four hours here? That process could take two or three hours, and so it really limits the amount of time that you could sleep. How has this business not come to more airports in America? I really don’t know

Because it is a really convenient, useful thing. And as long as you’re not claustrophobic, you should be okay and you should be able to stay in one of these. Let me know your thoughts. Would you stay in a capsule hotel or would you be too claustrophobic? Or could you not handle how quiet

You have to be inside of there? I am curious on your comments. Thanks for watching, time to go to dinner. Check out my Uber. It’s a BM- oh my gosh. A BMW-I7. It has automatic doors. It has all this little touchscreen right here. It has a theater built into the ceiling.

It’s going into theater mode right now. This screen is coming down. Look at that! And then my seat reclined. It reclined like a movie theater, A new shower experience that softly envelopes you in a comforting pillar of warm water, gently warming and refreshing your body. Okay.

28 Comments

  1. I stayed at a 9h capsule hotel a few months ago in Fukuoka. It looks pretty much identical to the one where you stayed. I hardly got any sleep though. There were a few loud snorers but what was worse was a guy who was coughing all night long and hacking up a lung. I don't think I'll stay in one again…

  2. When I was taking an entrance exam for my college, I stayed in a capsule hotel.
    I had to travel to another city to take the exam, so I traveled the night before so I could be fully prepared for the day.

    capsule hotels are good because it's cheap and clean and they have spas and relaxing rooms so,
    if you are traveling alone, dont spend so much money staying at a hotel and just save some and stay in one of those to get an unique experience.

    When my wife came from Brazil, she actually stayed in a capsule hotel in Sao Paulo airport. So some none japanese airport actually have those.
    It will be good when you have long layovers haha

    Hope you enjoyed Japan! Come back again!

  3. Someone would have to pay me to cover the cost in full … and I still wouldn't even bother paying to even think of staying in one of those things.

  4. it wouldnt succeed in America, because most Americans dont like being told what to do..such as being quiet and stuff.. alot of Americans dont like too many rules, so in order for it to succeed some stuff need to be modified to suit the American lifestyle such as really sound proofing the pods..give alternatives for double size pods as well to house couples(For airports of course)

  5. They are great for business men and women, and tourists. On a trip to Japan you do not want to spend all of your time in a room with so much to experience and see

  6. Congratulations on selling the house.🎉 Also very sad but i'm very excited for the new house building videos.😊

  7. I think it wouldn't work in America, because people aren't considerate enough. I know there is one in whistler and probably other ski areas but i think they aren't very cheap and again, I would assume people are not being very quiet there.

Write A Comment