The first time in my 13 trips to Japan since 1989.
Due to a cluelessness the night before my trip I realized I had arranged half of the trip about hotels being focused on some difficulties for main dates around Xmas and forgotten absolutely then what I had considered easy, the first two nights in Fukuoka. (But... not so easy).
So the nihght before the trip that I had scheduled early sleeping when I realized my fault I took time without any sucess trying to reserve some hotel in Fukuoka...
I finally traveled waiting for some answer to a request through japanhotel.net , in Amsterdam airport I received the answer The Hotel that have requested had not vacancies. Happily Japan has probably the biggest offer about accomodation you can find world wide. And also a great tourist service and I was quite relaxed on the plane even with some doubts because Xmas is always busy time anywhere.
So it was, a helpful lady at the tourist info at Fukuoka airport provided me the Sunroute Hotel for the second night but not possible to find any one concerted by them for the first. I decided to go to Hakata station in the city center and visited some hotels around, my lugagge was a tiny east pack and a little backpack, but more than seventeen hours, total trip since left home, it seemed much heavier.
Hotels : Route inn no way, Miyako no way, Green Hakata no way... Then came back to the central station "Hakata" with the idea to visit the tourist info again and try to do a reservation even out of the city in some possible onsen at the Fukuoka vicinity.
Another helpful lady tried again unsuccesfully calling by telephone some hotels... Same result. She suggested to me this place : Hotel "Las Cabinas", ha ha, familial name -"las cabinas" is spanish name- and by other side it was long time ago I was thinking about the idea of sleeping in a capsule hotel. This one I guess is more spacious than it must be usually, six hand palms of wide and more than two meters long, not closed window, plus a private space outside with a table and a box for clothes, a curtain separed each cubicle from the corridor and the rest of the neighbours.
When I arrived around 7:30 pm, 4 hours from my arrival, I was bit exhausted so I have a bath on the ponds (more than nine of the huge spa on the 11th floor, one of then outdoor) get relaxed and went inmediately to the "room", before to get sleep directly on the water.
I slept deeply from 8,30 to 12pm. It seems that was the time on that saturday when people go there, to put the cloths in the narrow box, to adapt the box... necessarily make noise, no words, to be precise as human noise some fart also, rest just the check in on the "rooms" with only that curtains, not acoustic isolation at all.
So at 12 pm I thought I have slept much more and I couldn´t return to sleep again inmediately due to the jet lag, so what to do? I went back to the nice spa, this time to the sauna and after that I had a pill for sleeping and in less than half an hour I slept for six hours more, non stop, untill more noise arise around 8 to 9 am, check out is scheduled at 11th.
A good experience. I sleep enough, plus the spa and total around 30 euros.
NEXT : DAZAIFU TENMANGU
