DiStar Wears The Rose: Chapter 11 - Campervan v Capsule Hotels

Total distance driven over 16 days: 2,870 km (1,783 miles).

The Rambling Rose II on the day we returned her. In one piece.

Reasons to Campervan in Japan:

- freedom and flexibility to start your journey when you want to
- and to pop off to a place of interest as you drive along
- lots and lots of rest stops, of which, many were better than airports in terms of dining, shops and loos
- parking areas (Michi-no-eki) are readily available meaning you can park overnight and use the facilities (loos, vending machines, some had coin operated showers) or there would be an onsen nearby where one can bathe (for a fee)
- listen to pod casts whilst driving to pass the miles
- reduce stress about accommodation (availability / cost) if you do need to adapt your plan
- have no plan, just drive!
- see hard to reach places (called: the countryside or wilderness)
- store the heavy rucksack you despise to carry in the boot for a few weeks
- tunnel watch and playing fun tunnel games such as 'guess the length of the "tunnel" and "whoopsie, it is so dark in here with my sunnies on I did not see that car behind me..."
- when the best view of Mt Fuji we got was from the highway

- pretty views of sea and mountains as you pass through valleys
- Disco warning lights and the funny waving warning robot when there was road maintenance. There were also pointless flag men waving warning flags as vehicles passed them at 100km/h (the men don't need to be there, very dangerous, this isn't Formula One).

Reasons not to Campervan in Japan:

- toll fares
- toll fares
- toll fares! We could have bought another return plane ticket to Japan with the amount we spent on tolls. God's honest truth. Toll free routes are available but they double the journey time. Not just add a mere 30 mins or 1 hr.
These routes likely take you up and down mountain roads, where as the toll highways pass through tunnels in mountains. 73% of Japan is mountaineous.
- when you have six rugby matches to attend as part of Rugby World Cup
(It meant we had to keep yo-yo-ing from city to city to get to matches, and this reduced time when a campervan could have been worthwhile - eg. when in the wilderness)
- parking charges in the city
- petrol cost (same as UK, and our van was a thirsty girl)
- if you have OCD and have to share a campervan with a boy, who to be fair, did his best to not agitate me
(My OCD is to do with putting outside things on inside things, not so much about ensuring all my items are perpendicular to each other or scrubbing my hands twenty times a day, FYI, just to trivialise OCD related anxiety a little 🙄)
- when the sat nav craps out and on every drive, there is at least one time you find yourself driving around in circles to re-route. This was also due to human error on some occasion... "the other left"... but mostly Betty (the sat nav lady) let us down.
- notice of less than 500m that there was a lane closure on the highway due to road maintenance
- poor visibility of cities as you passed them on the highway as most sections of highway that pass thru urban areas have large soundproofing structures to protect residents

- actual camp site fees could be up to £22 per person per night plus cost of coin operated shower (a very decent capsule hotel was £17 per night per person!)
- worrying about having to go pee in the night because I was trapped upstairs in the campervan penthouse. The roof entry hole meant that all my bedding and mattress needed to be folded up to lift the hatch to come down from the roof pop up.
- Bloody blood thirsty mosquitos.

Lessons Learnt:

It is recommended not to hire a campervan in Japan for a sporting tournament if your itinerary is quite tight as cost comes out top in the cost v. benefit debate. In hindsight, I did not know about the tolls at the time of booking nor did I expect hotel accommodation to be so widely / cheaply available during the tournament. Instead, we could have hired a car when needed (and pay less in toll fares for a smaller vehicle). However, despite my moaning, I experienced some new things because of campervanning:

1) driving in another country that was not the UK or Ireland
2) how to use a sat nav (sort of)
3) I would campervan again, if the conditions were optimal!
4) sleeping outdoors (sort of) and using the grimiest bathrooms to brush my teeth and wash my face, and I survived!
5) managing that OCD by giving myself stern talking to's and telling myself it will be ok once I get home to Zoflora to disinfect everything.
6) go a few days without makeup* and hair brushing or you know, washing. Although I couldn't look people in the eye, it turns out I can do this for 48 hours before I crumble into a heap on a hotel shower floor, thanking the lord for running water under my first world privilege.

*But I always had on face SPF!

And things that haven't changed / adapted:

1) I am still not a morning person. Don't talk to me until after 12pm ok.
2) My tendency to road rage and how (as a motorist and pedestrian) I despise cyclists - they cycle ON the pavement in Japan. On it. Yet, politely I suppose.
3) My disinterest in spending time parking a vehicle.
4) Travelling 'light'. Yeah, not happening.

About Capsule Hotels in Japan

Overall Experience: 5 stars
Cost: 5 stars
Availability at time of booking: 5 stars
Cleanliness: 5 stars
Cosyness: 5 stars
Privacy: 3 stars
Long stay ease: 3 stars (you have to check out daily by 10am but can store your luggage until 3pm check back in)
Toiletries: 5 stars
Phaff: 3 stars
Other guests: 5 stars (wear ear plugs to sleep though)

Capsule Hotels to Japanese standards would not work anywhere else. In Japan, the culture is to keep clean and stay quiet so guests at the capsules abide by this. Areas like sinks are wiped down by (most) users after use, the sleeping area is (mostly) kept free of luggage, phone calls cannot be taken in the sleeping area nor is food or drink allowed. For the cost of £30 or less a night, in the UK it would turn into a hen do / stag do type of place to stay and it would be mayhem. But in Japan it works, and I am so pleased we stayed there, I had a great experience.