Japan -- `Love Hotels': Trysting To The Sounds Of Karaoke

TOKYO, Japan - It was the nicest hotel I had seen in Tokyo, but there was one particularly strange feature. The rooms, which featured marble walls and counters, rich furnishings, spectacular bathrooms and built-in karaoke machines, lacked windows.

Perhaps it wasn't so strange, for discretion and anonymity were part of the attraction here, along with the hidden entrance and the very silent staff.

Here at The Sepia, in the Shibuya section of Tokyo - one of the city's estimated 1,000 "love hotels" - guests stay only an hour or two. When they book the room, they sign on, euphemistically, for "a rest."

In Tokyo, houses are tiny, filled with generations of family members and often built with flimsy wood walls. The soundproof and gadget-laden rooms of love hotels are said to offer couples privacy they can't get at home. Privacy and adventure

According to Iwao Komatsu, a writer for one of Japan's scores of adult magazines, about 30 percent of love-hotel clients are married couples escaping the closed-in feeling of family life for a little re-kindling adventure; they're mostly middle-aged and wealthy.

A "high-class clientele" is how they're characterized by the Sepia's manager, Ms. Ogawa (her first name, and the names of her guests, are closely held secrets).

As for the other 70 percent, Komatsu said in a conversation at a nearby coffee shop, they might be co-workers, or a prostitute and her client, or even two people who hit it off one afternoon over sashimi and want to explore other mutual interests.

Luxurious and expensive

The Sepia is a far cry from American "adult motels" - stereotypically situated in sleazy areas, with surly clerks, cigarette-burned furniture and raunchy videos. Many love hotels - the higher class ones are referred to as "fashion hotels" by the wealthy and powerful clientele - are among the fanciest in Tokyo.

And they have prices to match. At the Sepia a two hour visit can cost more than $150.

For this, you might get in-room Doric columns, a black marble bathtub, fine art and luxurious towels - and a round bed, a vibrating bed or a rotating bed.

These well-appointed stages on which to play out your fantasies even include gymnasium rooms.

Most rooms have a karaoke machine, so you can even sing to each other to get in the mood.

Manners and protocol

It's not unknown for people to stumble across acquaintances at a love hotel, Komatsu said, particularly one near a busy office where executives congregate. But it's good form to agree to silence in these cases. It's not that anyone feels ashamed of their activities, Komatsu said. But to be indiscreet would be a sign of poor judgment and might even result in the loss of a job.

Most often, it's the man of the family who steals away for love hotel assignations, Komatsu said. In years past, this would be seen as his right, and he'd be quite open about it.

"The woman then would probably think, `He's a good provider, and everyone does it,' " Komatsu said. "But now, more and more women would get angry about it and say they wanted a divorce. That divorce would never have been granted in the old days, and the judge might even have scolded the woman for asking for one. Now there's a good possibility the divorce would be granted, with high alimony."

But rather than ceasing and desisting, men have instead become experts at excuses and deceptions.

If a woman smells another's perfume coming from her husband, she may accept the excuse that it came from a hostess at a bar where the man went to drink with co-workers - practically a work obligation in Japan.

Or he may say it came from rubbing against others in the closed-in spaces of the public trains.

Sounds and song

Technology can also aid in the deception.

At least one Tokyo love hotel features a small soundproof booth in the lobby, complete with telephone and ambient sound system. From there, the straying husband can choose a program and call home. He might be telling his wife he got delayed at the train station; from speakers in the booth come the realistic sounds of rush hour at Hibaya Station. Or he might say his boss has demanded, again, that he stay up all night drinking. The tinkle of ice and cocktail music is heard.

Believe it or not, Komatsu said, many come alone to love hotels: not for sexual purposes, but to use the in-room karaoke machines to practice for singing for their bosses at some evening event - an important, potentially career-altering performance.

Journalistic persistence

Westerners are generally discouraged from visiting love hotels for any reason. But journalists asking questions are a particular no-no, what with prostitution still being officially illegal and captains of industry walking the halls.

But I was determined to visit one from the moment I entered Japan.

At first, it looked as if it would take a con job to get in. Endless calls to proper authorities went unanswered; my contacts at the organization that sponsored me in Japan didn't seem especially eager to help.

With just two days left in my Tokyo stay, a (strictly platonic) Japanese friend and I decided to pose as an amorous couple so I could get inside.

This was a great sacrifice on the part of my friend (whom we'll call Keiko); she comes from a highly respectable family and works for a conservative business organization. If she were spotted walking into a love hotel, especially with an American, it could lead to trouble and potential disgrace.

Her boss caught wind of our plans and nixed them. But Keiko had never been inside a love hotel, either, and had become as intrigued as I. She pulled major strings and called in markers.

That's how she and I, along with my interpreter (who seemed more than a little shocked), found ourselves in a cab outside Ebisu Station, waiting for the high sign. In moments, a rough-looking man in a business suit appeared and waved us out of the cab and down the block to the entrance of an imposing looking building with no outside markings of any kind.

We slipped in as quickly as we could, and found ourselves in the sumptuous lobby of the Sepia.

Ms. Ogawa, who was the soul of courtesy, showed us around after making sure no one was in the hallways and all the doors were closed. She was obviously very proud of this first-class establishment, which had been converted from a "businessman's hotel" at great expense less than a year before.

Business was booming, she said, as she showed us her best (unoccupied) rooms.

Ms. Ogawa seemed to appreciate our nice words about her hotel. She invited me to stay there overnight (almost unheard of and a very special privilege) the next time I was in Tokyo.

Let's see: At $150 for two hours, that would be $1,800 per day.

Arigato gozaimashto, but no thanks, Ms. Ogawa.

On the way out, clutching brochures and such as souvenirs, the two woman and I were spotted by a group of construction workers across the street.

How it must have looked, a broadly smiling gaijin with an attractive woman on each side, I couldn't imagine. But I had fun thinking about it.