Capsule INN Miyako

The area is convenient, but the hotel feels a little run down and has a bit of a smell.

For an older place from the CRT TV era, the capsules are fairly tall, so you can sit up inside. There’s a large public bath with towels, plus basic things like a hairdryer. It has the essentials an older guy needs after a night of drinking. The location is good and the price is affordable. One annoyance: the public bath showers only run while you hold the button down. You can’t even wash your hair without pressing it with your foot, lol. I wish they had the newer kind that keeps running for several seconds after you press it.

The capsule itself was comfortable, and I slept well with the air conditioning. In winter, capsule hotels can get too hot and make it hard to sleep. This place is reasonably priced at 3,100 yen on weekdays and 4,000 yen on Saturdays. Check-out is at noon, and it’s within walking distance of Pacifico Yokohama. Noge’s bar district is right behind it, and Sakuragicho Station on the Keihin-Tohoku Line is fairly close. The building and some of its equipment are showing their age, and it isn’t the cleanest. Capsules are cleaned daily, towel sets for the bath are provided, and the front desk has free toothbrushes and T-shaped razors. There’s a small bath and sauna, laundry and dryer vending machines, and a rest area. The lockers are small, and you can’t leave luggage in the hallway. Large bags have to go at the front desk, so you need to ask staff to retrieve them when you want to change. That can be a hassle.

The Showa-era feeling runs through the whole place, and to me it feels like an emotional piece of cultural heritage. Classic spots like this in Tokyo-area drinking districts are becoming rare, so I’d recommend it to fans of that era. The third-floor rest room still feels like a construction-site break room, while the first-floor room has more of a guardroom feel, with novels and other things around. The snack bar is handy for grabbing a few snacks. Upstairs, it’s like a Showa-era sports clubroom, complete with that nostalgic smell. The manga and game consoles are a hard-boiled selection, and I can imagine getting excited to stay here. The dry sauna has the fragrant smell, worn walls, volume, and layout of a local public bath. Its historic stove and scorched exterior walls are moving to see. The cold bath is also public-bath sized, with a deep L-shaped tub, and it’s wonderfully icy at this time of year. In the bathing area, you sit on a stool like at a neighborhood bath, or lean against the hot-water bath. The bath is as hot as one at a local public bath, and this was my first time seeing external water jets. I was walking from Hodogaya toward Yokohama Station and got curious, so I came by for the first time in about three years. The interior is still sleek, with that stately, smug back-alley vibe. This was the main destination on my Yokohama trip, a place I’d wanted to visit for ages. We visited Capsule Inn Miyako, a long-standing izakaya haven in Noge, the classic izakaya district. The picture-perfect Showa-era building brought back memories.