The Internet Cafe Survival Guide for Foreigners

Or: Masters of Space and Time

Japan: the city that never sleeps.  Unfortunately, you do.  Your brain reels at the whirlwind of sights, colors, and sounds in the electronic kaleidescope of life in Tokyo.  But those three straight days staying up freebasing wasabi are starting to take their toll, and you're fading faster than a J-Pop idol's career after her 18th birthday.    Your mind turns to thoughts of sleep, perhaps at a ryokan--a Japanese traditional-style inn.  There you will revitalize your spirit, drawing strength from the cloistered mountain hideaway and resting your weary eyes on a pillow of the softest bundled straw.  There, the worries of your earthly form shall be washed away: the rush of the commuter trains, the uncomfortable stare of the four-fingered tattooed man, your lack of money...

Money!  Of course!  How foolish it would be to forget that!  Stumbling into the local convenience store (or konbini, as they are more locally known--you sly cultural wordsmith, you), you push through the doors and squint painfully under the newfound iridescence (irashaimase to you, good sir!).  Through heavy, bloodshot eyes you scan the aisles for an ATM and, finding one, you lumber toward the back of the store.

You reach for your wallet and stuff your card into the machine.  You raise a finger and stab the "English" button on the touchscreen.  You wait a moment and... "Service not available" appears in big letters on the screen as the machine emits an angry wail alerting everyone to the presence of some broke asshole trying to get his money.  Whatever!  You'll just stab at some buttons and eventually you'll get some cash.  Wrong again, asshole!  The machine politely reminds you that service hours are between 8AM and 9PM, and fuck you for thinking a machine could just magically serve you any old time you please.  Don't you know it's 4AM?  Harumph!  Good day, sir!

Standing outside the konbini, dejected, sipping a beer and taking a drag of the cigarette in front of the twin vending machines you just bought them from, it dawns on you: perhaps those straw pillows will have to wait until another night, unless they sell them in some kind of vending machine.  No, it would seem traditional lodging is out of the question.  The spirit of adventure stirs in your belly.  It'll be just like the time the family went for a five-month camping trip after Herbert J. McCracken foreclosed on Pa's old sawmill.  Except this time Pa won't have to worry about building a rope swing in the forest and getting it all tangled around his neck and getting him down with a broom handle the next morning.

You reach into your wallet and rue your decision to only take out 40,000 yen ($400 or so) this morning.  But that deal on anime figurines was once-in-a-lifetime.

It's how Grandpa would have wanted you to spend the inheritance

Less than $20 left after your splurge (and you'll be splurging again as soon as you rehydrate, if you know what I mean) leaves few options.  You've already decided against capsule hotels after that nasty incident during Sigma Kappa's hazing at the funeral parlor.

Fatigue rapidly setting in and running out of options at roughly the same pace, you walk.  The sounds of Tokyo's one-of-a-kind nightlife echo throughout the dark streets, a concert of people and places and promises of unforgettable things.

It will still be there tomorrow night.

As it is every night.

But for now, you trudge forward on your sleepless pilgrimage, searching for a place to rest your head.  At the moment all seems lost, at the imminence of your quiet defeat, when that dirty, drunk old man's beard looks its fluffiest, salvation comes in the form of a neon sign:

I've never been so happy to see the word Manboo

Overtaken by emotion, you nearly trip over your own feet and the fluffiest beard you've ever seen as you make for the door, charging up the steps to your reward and you think to yourself: "why didn't I take the elevator?"  

You pry the doors open and again the fluorescent lighting does a number on your weary eyes, but this time you bask in the radiance of your newfound refuge, the synthesized electronic warmth a welcome change from chaotic streets below.  Your choices, once seemingly so limited now unfold before you as you move to the counter.  Booth or open seating? Floor seating, or massage chair?  Single or double, or--do you dare?--business?  Sayonara to the days of "you cannot" and "no choice" and "look at this asshole trying to get at his money."  Konnichiwa, free drink bar.

I promised myself I wouldn't cry

The bespectacled twenty-something behind the register hands you a small clipboard with a receipt and your booth number.  Winding your way through the cubicle farm and racks upon racks of softcore cartoon pornography, you hear the hiss of a shower-head behind a locked door as you journey deeper into the heart of the grid.  Your voyage is almost at an end.

It's always nighttime in the Internet cafe.  All is quiet and calm, save for a few curious mouse-clicks and the comings and goings of men in suits and exhausted ladies in sharp business-wear.  It is home away from home for the road-worn traveler and simply home the working poor scraping by in the city.

At the end of an unassuming hallway, you see a closed door behind which the pale light of a monitor bravely pierces the darkness.

You push back the door, the slick surface cold to the touch as it rolls open, the squealing of the wheels rolling along the track creating a lone mote of sound in the pitch-silent miasma.  You lock eyes with the most beautiful thing you've ever seen:

I mean second-most beautiful

Yeah, that's it

Shuffling inside the cramped booth, you wriggle into the plush leather cushioned seat, never feeling happier or more at home on this side of the Pacific.  You drop your backpack at your feet.  This paradise all yours for the next five hours.  Five hours of blissful, uninterrupted peace and quiet--and the shuteye you so desperately crave.  Five long hours to retreat from your worldly woes and meditate on everything that has happened since the airport.  Five uninterrupted hours of respite, of solitude, of renewal for your addled mind and fatigued soul.  It may as well be an eternity; the luxury of space and time, all yours for a nominal fee.

And then you unzip your pants.

Well, four-and-a-half hours of sleep is still pretty good