Love hotels
From OSWIKI
A love hotel is a type of short-stay hotel found in Japan operated primarily for the purpose of allowing couples privacy to have sexual intercourse. Love hotels usually offer a room rate for a "rest", as well as for an overnight stay. The period of a "rest" varies, typically ranging from one to three hours. Cheaper daytime off-peak rates are common. In general, reservations are not possible, leaving the hotel will forfeit access to the room, and overnight stay rates only become available after 10pm. While they are sometimes used for prostitution, the largest group of clientele is comprised of unmarried couples and married couples with very little living space at home.
Entrances are discreet and interaction with staff is minimized, with rooms often selected from a panel of buttons and the bill settled by pneumatic tube, automatic cash machines, or a pair of hands behind a pane of frosted glass. While cheaper hotels are utilitarian, higher-end hotels may feature fanciful rooms decorated with anime characters, equipped with rotating beds, ceiling mirrors, karaoke machines, strange lighting or styled similarly to dungeons, sometimes including S&M gear.
These hotels are typically either concentrated in certain city districts such as Shibuya and Shinjuku, on the city outskirts, or in industrial districts. Love hotel architecture is sometimes garish, with buildings shaped like castles, boats or UFOs and lit with lurid pink and purple neon lighting. However, many love hotels are very ordinary looking buildings, distinguished mainly by having small or covered windows.
Wired article on Love Hotels, including more pictures.
