Hotel Forum in Tokyo’s Shin-Okubo is an old-school Japanese love hotel. And when I say old, I do mean old.
Forum is somewhat known in Tokyo as a BDSM hotel. (It’s not the BDSM hotel, though. For the curious, that would be Alpha In, a den of depravity hidden away in the otherwise buttoned-up Azabu-Juban neighborhood.) But some of its pared-down rooms do come with the odd piece of bondage furniture, like room 401 below.
I’d never been to Forum before, though I’d been curious to check it out. So I was happy to find myself visiting on Tuesday night on a unique adventure. However, as soon as we got there, I realized something was different.
We never got a room key.
“Pay at the machine when you’re done,” the manager told us in Japanese. I didn’t realize what he meant until we went to the room.
The door was wide open. We went in and shut it behind us.
And that’s when we realized we’d be stuck there for the next two to three hours.
Many foreign travelers want to try love hotels when they come to Japan. Not many, however, are aware of the different types of love hotels. Here’s my own experience with a “captive” love hotel, how to recognize one, and how to prepare to enter one. I’ll also cover how to avoid entering one in the first place – and where you should go instead.
Why love hotels don’t like you leaving
Not every love hotel in Japan operates this way these days. Few in Tokyo do, in fact. (A friend tells me that you’ll find more of these types of setups in other prefectures, like Gunma.)
However, as a rule, many hotels don’t like you going in and out. There’s a reason for that.
