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Osaka Comfort Hotel: Viva La Banality!

Go To The Hotel's Web Site Where: 1-15-15 Higashi-Shinsaibashi Chuo-ku, Osaka, Japan, 542-0083
October 5, 2007 at 2:37 PM | by Judson | 0 Comments

[Ed. Note: Jaunted contributor AJ McGuire recently finished a tour of Osaka and reported back to us on the town's changing love hotel scene. But today, we have a treat. A normal, non-love hotel. Enjoy.]

Yeah, I know. Its not like the NY Times Food and Wine section is reviewing local Burger Kings but think of the context. This is Osaka and thus we've passed through the looking glass and lodging in a Comfort Hotel is now exotic.

Is your B.S. detector going off yet? No? Good, stay with me. The true beauty of the Comfort Hotel Shinsaibashi is that it's exactly what it says on the label: a budget-priced, American-style hotel right in the middle of South Osaka's main nerve for drinking, eating, clubbing, shopping and all the other ways to lose your sense and your travel budget.

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One Night of 'Love' at the Hotel Cordon Bleu in Osaka

Where: Namba, Osaka, Japan
October 3, 2007 at 10:06 AM | by Judson | 2 Comments

[Ed. Note: Jaunted contributor AJ McGuire recently finished a tour of Osaka and reported back to us on the town's changing love hotel scene.]

Beyond the big, the gaudy, the crazy, the likely settings for romance not just unconventional but possibly illegal, there are the standard love hotels.

The ones that get the job done with a minimum of fiberglass mythical beasts bolted to the outside of the building. With outside decor that would not be altogether out of place for a regular tacky tourist hotel, the Hotel Cordon Bleu aims squarely at the middle of the the love hotel market, providing a setting for the average couple to make average love to be made in mildly exciting comfort.

Admittedly, we settled on the Cordon Bleu after checking out the other, more adventurous hotels in the Namba neighborhood and finding them all booked up save for the ultra premium rooms (the bed on hydraulics, a Burt Reynolds-shaped pinata, etc).

For those without a need for complex harnesses, but looking for a bathroom big enough to breakdance in, for those turned off by the cutesy/creepy vibe of the Hotel Beaver across the street but seeking something naughtier than a Ramada Inn, there's the Hotel Cordon Bleu.

Pictures of the faintly scandalous interior after the jump.

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Osaka Love Hotels Just Ain't What They Used to Be

Where: Osaka, Japan
October 2, 2007 at 2:37 PM | by Judson | 3 Comments

[Ed. Note: Jaunted contributor AJ McGuire recently finished a tour of Osaka and reported back to us on the town's changing love hotel scene.]

As Osaka is considered the loudest, brashest, gaudiest city in Japan, its only natural that the city's love hotels compete with the neon overload of the Dotonbori district and the deranged fantasy world of nearby Universal Studios Japan.  For a business whose bread and butter is discretion, love hotels are hard to miss around here.  Spread liberally throughout the city, love hotels are convenient landmarks, beacons of light on drunken stumbles home, and fodder for untold numbers of WTF tourist photos.

Venerable as they are, Osaka's love hotels are not immune to change. Even much loved institutions as the Gang Snowman have been redesigned in takeovers and questionable marketing moves. In the photo above, the former Belles des Belles seems to be ripping off Robert Indiana in rebranding itself a little more generically --that is, if a massive white building sporting Greek columns, angel sculptures, a massive neon lit silver orb on the roof and the new name Hotel Love can be called generic.

MORE Love Hotel photos after the jump.

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