Hotels ホテル

So this post is long overdue since the last time I stayed in a hotel was four months ago... So for getting this to you so slowly, but here it finally is. What is it like to stay in a Japanese hotel?
 Well, first off, I have only stayed in a few hotels - just enough to convince me that every hotel experience in Japan will not be the same. Like in the states there will be a unique flavor and service in each (although you can generally expect to avoid the misfortune of the terrifying american motel.) In general there are two types of hotels, business hotels and traditional hotels. I have only stayed in business hotels which are the more western of the two. For a flavor of a traditional Japanese guesthouse you can check out this video from some of my favorite vloggers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6N_TFXpaHAQ

In the spirit of tradition, hotels often have disposable slippers for patrons to wear inside the room because the Japanese have something against being barefoot. On more than one occasion the hotel has even supplied a yukata like a bathrobe for my convenience. 

In tho photos above you can see the view from the front of a hotel near mount fuji and a miniature model which they had in the lobby of that same hotel. The card is demonstrating a nifty little feature in one of the hotels. In order to turn lights or electricity on you had to deposit your key card in this machine by the door. If you removed the key (a.k.a. left the room) the lights would automatically turn off.

In most of the hotels, instead of a coffee maker they have a water heater and green tea... which is just not a solution when I want some coffee. 

When it comes to other amenities, hotels have the standard shower-bath and bed and such. However, the floor space of each room is often much smaller than you would expect in America. In one of my hotels, the entire room/bathroom combination was probably less than 150 square feet. In this smaller hotel there was no closet, just a bar of hangers on the wall at the foot of the bed for my clothes. 

One thing that I was encouraged to find was the shelf of books in English and Japanese, including a Bible (above the hairdryer). Some things are universal.