6.8 .06
Pond Scum: Kimi Mo Heya Ni Itano Ka?
By Steve Finbow
I thought it was like sleeping with an ecstatic cat suffering from a bad heart murmur while Victoria said it reminded her of a very turbulent flight on which an annoying child kept poking the back of her seat. This was the vibrating bed we were lying on in the White Inn love hotel in the Susukino district of Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan. Susukino (pronounced Suskino) is the entertainment district – strip clubs, hostess bars, brothels, restaurants, and drinking establishments. Earlier that night, we had visited the Electric Sheep Bar on the ninth floor of the Watanabe Building. From our lofty seats, we could see giant neon signs for Sanyo, Suntory, and Japan, Japan, Japan. White taxis prowled the streets below and great flocks of bats swooped through the electric night. A fifty-foot spider crab advertised god knows what. Arcing across the sky, a green and purple big wheel sliced a hazy lemon half-moon. Female voices advertised cigarettes and whisky from electronic loudspeakers – all we needed was a cartwheeling Daryl Hannah, an origami unicorn, and torrential rain. Cocktails included a Bladerunner and a Replicant but there was also a Shandy Guff, a Violet Sky Ricky, and a Fazzy (sic) Navel – we had beer – all you can drink in ninety minutes for 2,100 Yen (about £10 or $19) – bargainist.
By Nicholas Allanach
Love hotels are a peculiarly Japanese phenomenon. In Sapporo, they had names like Hotel Vanilla, La Mer, La Mer Junior, La Mer Villa (sorry, Norman Mailer, but I could not find one called La Terre), there was Hotel Lazz and Hotel Coco, Hotel Moon Story, and the Sususkino Love Hotels 1, 2, and 3. The Hotel White Inn was in the upper range. This is how love hotels work: couples (heterosexual) can book a room by the hour. In the reception area there is a panel displaying each room, all rooms are decorated in a different way, some contain swimming pools, Jacuzzis, saunas; some are themed – jungle, space, cave; some look like a teenager’s bedroom; some have four-poster, round, or water beds. You select the rooms (those occupied are not illuminated), a receipt is issued and you either pay at reception or, as we found to our peril, the room is unlocked, you enter, the door closes and automatically locks behind you, the only way to get out is to pay the machine in the genkan – the entranceway where shoes are stored; when you have done so – or when you have worked out how to do so – the door unlocks.
On the first night at the Hotel White Inn, Victoria and I chose the high-tech/entertainment room. It had a six-foot-by-four-foot plasma TV and a four-foot-by-three-foot TV that doubled as a karaoke machine, we also had a DVD and a VHS player. The TV showed Japanese programmes plus three porn channels two of which were Japanese and one Western (and I don’t mean cowboys, I mean Sylvia Saint). Japanese porn is kinda strange and I will be writing more about it in a small book I am putting together called Eastward with Lurid Emotions & Tales of Love & Beer. Dominating the room was a five-foot-long white tiger (stuffed) that sat on a quarter-moon red and blue sofa. There was a Joey-and-Chandler-style black leather chair (with maple wood armrests) that vibrated, massaged, and shook – it had stirrups for feet. On the walls were two Andy Warhol prints of Gerber daisies. An intricate lighting system at the head of the bed, operated by a mission control (or should that be emission control?) dashboard, contained spots and dimmers and a disco light changing from green to yellow to red to violet to blue and back to green. If you really wanted it to, the bed vibrated. Above the bed was a laminated flyer for what I thought was an engagement ring – I am stupidly romantic at times. Victoria pointed out that what I thought was a pink sapphire was actually a plastic device inserted anally and switched to hum, shiver, and quiver. The bathroom had a Jacuzzi, a wet room with showers, and a sauna in which I pressed the alarm button by mistake and received a call from reception asking in frantic and rapid Japanese if we were OK. One of the showerheads could be fitted with a disposable nodule for deep vaginal cleansing (according to the picture on its cover). The toilet (standard for Japan) had a heated seat, bidet, and what can only be described as “bottom shower” functions. If you check in after 11pm, you can rent the room for the night and check out at 10am. The White Inn was about £50 a night.
The second night, we stayed in Hotel Vanilla, which is really rather apt – vanilla meaning conventional sex, the missionary position, sex among Caucasians, or vaginal intercourse – the root (ooh, er, missus) of the word “vanilla” meaning scabbard or sheath – hence vagina. The Vanilla was a little more downmarket but there was a four-poster bed, an amazing light and sound system with birdsong and waterfall effects, a five-by-three-foot TV and karaoke machine, a DVD player, and a superior Jacuzzi. But what the Vanilla had that the White Inn lacked was a toy bar. Yes, alongside the mini-bar (all rooms have fridges and coffee-making facilities) was another bar that dispatched sex toys. There were vibrators of varying length and girth (one black monster on the bottom shelf stayed right where it was), there were metal balls and eggs, and a drink that was either liquid Viagra or ginseng – it definitely was not Stella Artois. The Vanilla would set you back £30 a night.
The Japanese have given us ukiyoe, shodo, kabuki, noh, kyogen, ningyo-jurori, waka, haiku, senryu, and tanka; they have given us sushi, sashimi, tempura, and nabemono; but surely their greatest contributions to the civilized world are love hotels and vending machines dispensing cans of ice-cold beer.
Three Love Hotel Haiku
A vibrating bed
Two lovers naked and close
The sound of laughter
Victoria glows
In the light of the sauna
And I fall deeper
The moon is slowing
I think of her bikini
Another heart dies
Click here to read previous Pond Scum columns.
Click here for Steve Finbow's bio and a list of works published.
© 2006 Me Three
