The Nara Seishonen-Kaikan Youth Hostel

For this post, I think it a good time to talk about the hostel I stayed in while in Nara. It's name was the Nara-ken Seishonen-Kaikan youth hostel. It was equal parts normal hostel as one would see anywhere in the world with several rooms capable of occupation of eight people or more and parts ryoukan - a traditional Japanese-style inn. I felt very fortunate in that our professor had booked the ryoukan-style rooms, meaning we were able to have the traditional experience during our stay.

We had a total of three rooms, one for the three females in the group and then rooms of four and six for the guys. I was in the room of four with John and Peter and our student leader, Christian. These floors of these rooms were tatami mats, flooring made of interwoven, fine straw and each had a low coffee table in the middle. In lieu of beds, we instead slept on futon mats that we were expected to fold up every day, a very traditional way of sleeping in Japan.

Amenities the hostel offered was a cafeteria-style room with a fridge for guest use and of course the essential vending machines. It also boasted a laundry room with a free washer but a charging dryer. Electricity is at a premium in Japan and so usually Japanese families will hang their clothes on a line to air dry. Being as poor as I was and also finding the dryer to be rather weak after one use, I chose to hang my laundry outside to air. It was fairly nice for most of the time we were in Nara and I believe there was only one day in which it rained. However, during the course of the week we spent in Nara one of my favorite shirts I had brought along went missing, I presume snatched off the line while drying. An unfortunate risk you run at hostels - thieves.

A somewhat unique aspect of this hostel is the Japanese-style communal bath. There were two rooms for men and women and in these rooms you had one tub that fit about three people comfortably and about six shower-heads with accompanying bucket and seat. It was expected that people would bathe together and despite embarrassment or modesty, it was against the rules of the hostel to wear anything but your birthday suit in the baths. It was actually considered rude to wear anything into the baths in Japan.

Hostels are a relatively cheap way to live if you're only going to be spending a week or so in Japan. Prices range from as low as $20 with even some of the higher end hostels topping out at $50. The reason for the low price is that hostels provided you basically with just a roof over your head, without various luxuries provided at higher end hotels. As long as your willing to put up with sometimes less than ideal sleeping arrangements in favor of saving some money, hostels are key.

A particular benefit to our hostel in Nara was it's proximity not only to a Lawson's convenience store which would prove to be our breakfast spot for the whole week, mainly due to their deliciously fried chicken and cheese nuggets, but also to a cheap local supermarket which had a small, but cheap selection of food and drink that we were able to store in the fridge at the hostel. Many of us made our meals that week from the discount bread sold at the supermarket.

It was also here that I bought my first legal beer, the drinking age in Japan being a younger 20. I had no clue about Japanese beer and thus made the unfortunate decision to buy Asahi Clear as my first beer. I have tasted worse beers before and I'm sure I will again in the future, but a word of advice, I would avoid this particular draft when choosing from among Asahi's vast stock. In a later post, I'll break down some of the more popular beers, including my particular favorite, Asahi Super Dry Black.'

Useful phrase in this week's post:

ryoukan - りょかん　旅館

meaning: Japanese-style inn