Jeepers creepers, your love hotel might be crawling with peepers

Uramono Japan (October)

If you -- and perhaps your lady friend as well -- are not sufficiently stimulated by each other's company, you might want to consider injecting some additional excitement into your trysts, by watching other couples do the dirty deed, unbeknownst to them of course, from a handy peeping perspective, albeit not necessarily a point purposely provided.

Writing in Uramono Japan (October), reporter Hisashi Yamazaki says he developed an interest in this topic from the old days, when the walls of cheaply constructed hotels were so thin one could easily and effortlessly eavesdrop on the affectionately amorous acoustic effects generated by cavorting couples.

After considerable research, Yamazaki has found that indeed, places exist in Tokyo where a strategically situated voyeur can observe the visual action as well.

The first spot Yamazaki identifies is "Hotel Ai" in Shinjuku's Kabukicho adult entertainment district. By Yamazaki's reckoning, by entering the bathroom and boosting oneself up to the top of the window ledge, one gets a ostrich-eye view of goings on in the rooms in the hotel immediately adjacent -- provided the window is open. And to eliminate any guesswork in gaining access to such a perspective, the reporter proclaims the voyeuristic view is visible from rooms 301, 303, 308, 401, 403 and 408.

Near Shinjuku station's East exit is an establishment offering rooms for rent with the moniker "U-Shii Jikan" (You see time), which, as the name implies, caters to people who like to watch. If you get lucky, as did Yamazaki, you might walk past a room with the door not only ajar, but completely open, inside of which a couple engaged in passionate sex.

Ten onlookers stood outside watching the free show. And the girl on the bed, Yamazaki adds, was stunning enough to be a model.

At a similar rental place by Shinjuku's West exit named "Y-ngu Inn" (pronounced Young In) appeals to those who prefer to eavesdrop. A thorough check by Yamazaki determines the peepholes on the doors to nine of its rooms -- numbers 3, 6, 7, 10, 11, 13, 19, 20 and 21 -- afford such opportunities.

He suggests looking out from the peephole to see which rooms eager couples enter, and then after a suitable wait -- like 90 seconds -- putting one's ear against their door.

Likewise for another shop near Shinjuku's west exit, A hotel identified only as "M" in Hyakunin-cho, located across Shokuan Dori from Kabukicho, is so designed with windows that open onto a central area, thereby providing a total of four rooms that enable mutual peeping, i.e., a both-sides-now arrangement where lascivious lovers can, if prearranged, simultaneously view each other in various stages of coital coupling. The respective room numbers for such fun and games, Yamazaki writes, are 105-108 and 205-211.

Finally, "G Inn Michiyo," accessed from the north exit of JR Komagome Station, boasts a mirrored wall that enables a guest situated in the room named "Sunny" to view the reflection of patrons atop the bed in a neighboring room named "Kame" (tortoise). As the Japanese medical word for glans penis happens to be "kito," meaning "turtle head," this particular room's name would appear to fit the situation to the proverbial "T." (By Masuo Kamiyama, contributing writer)

Mainichi Japan October 8, 2007