Along the way, I stayed in hostels throughout. Staying at backpackers' hostels can be a hit or miss thing. Like the one in Tokyo I put up at. Even though I paid a little more to stay in a four-person dorm instead of the 8-person one, I can still hear people snoring in the other room at night. What do you expect, the walls and doors are made of paper, in the traditional Jap style. Worse still, in the middle of the night, someone in the other room -- horrors of horrors -- let out an explosive fart amid the snoring!
The one in Kyoto is a real shit-hole of a place. And it has the audacity to call itself 'Sparkling Dolphins'! Utterly shameless! There's nothing 'sparkling' in this hostel. Twelve people were crammed into 6 double-bunked beds, with hardly any space to manoeuvre and put our stuff. I would've been better off in one of those capsule hotels, where u get to sleep inside a tiny 'coffin'! What's more, Sparkling Dolphins has only one toilet and shower to be shared among all twelve of us! and what gets my goat is the dryer. My wet clothes needed to run through the dryer at least twice before they can be deemed to have attained a decent level of dryness. Luckily, each round on the dryer cost only 100 yen (S$1.30).
The best stay I had was in this tranquil town of Nara, at Guesthouse Tamura. It was recommended by a friend, and it turned out to be everything one could ever asked for. It's clean, cosy and quiet. But what takes the cake is the owner of the house. She's such a good hostess tat she will go the extra mile to get you the info that you want. And she will periodically lapse into her wacky laughter that makes you warm to her.
The last place I stayed at in Japan was this excellent hostel in Tennoji, Osaka. The room was the traditional Jap style where u sleep on a futon upon tatami flooring -- very comfy, esp the pillow, which was filled with beans or rice. And did I tell you the window and door panels are really made of paper! But alas, on my second day there, I was banished to the mixed dorm (someone else had booked the traditional dorm before me) where there's the usual bunk beds instead of the traditional ones. Mine's the one on the lower bunk, and there was an Aussie couple in the same room. I was a tad concerned that the guy will climb down to join the girl in the middle of the night and create some 'earthquake' of their own. (This actually happened when I was in Europe!) Yup, I may be in Japan, and the building is quake-proof, but I don't need this kind of 'earthquake'! My sleep is more important!
