Is that really Japan?

This morning I had to get up very early to catch my bus to the Hong Kong airport and then take my flight to TOKYO NARITA. I arrived there in the afternoon. As there arrived to Cathay Pacific flights from Hong Kong at almost the same time, I first went to the wrong baggage claim and was wondering why my baggage was not there. But with the help of an airport employee I got this little riddle solved and finally got my beggage.

With my baggage I first wend to the tourist office at the airport to find an affordable accomandation for tonight. They were really helpful and finally found a mid-range hotel for about 6000 YEN in TOKYO IKEBUKURO for me. Well, it was almost a three hour journey by train and metro to get there and as I arrived, I was a little confused to find the hotel. I asked somebody on the street to help me, but she did not understand english at all. The second person I asked understood me, but also didn't speak english. But he was so friendly to come with me and show me the way to my hotel.

On my way to this hotel I was wondering why there are so many cheap hotels in the neighbourhood. There were signs offering rooms for about 2000 YEN. But only the numbers and the name "hotel" were written in english, the rest I did not understood. After checking in in to my hotel, I went out for a little walk round the neighborhood and went to one of these cheap hotels to check if they have a room available for tomorrow. But they did not speak english in this hotel. So I went to another hotel and there I found out that these rates are hourly rates. So actually I currently stay in one of Tokyos redlight districts (Wikipedia tells the same).


Seems to be a quite cheap hotel, hej?

So for tomorrow, I have to find out more about Tokyo and get a location in a more friendly neighbourhood.