Lake Ogawara

The room was actually a trailer- which was unexpected. It was kind of very tight. The sofa bed was pretty uncomfortable and blocked the whole rooms. Kind of tripping hazard if the others want to use the bathroom at night. The facility was very clean. The onsen was very nice.

As someone who generally stays at APA hotels and the occasional capsule hotel, I'd consider this room to be "super-nice." It was a like an APA room but slightly more spacious and where most everything in the room was 'slightly nicer.' **Upsides: *The sliding door that separated the bedroom from the entryway went a long ways toward dampening sounds from the hallway, to the extent where I didn't hear anything when I had the door closed. *The bathroom was level with the entryway floor; it had the toilet and shower I've used at newer capsule hotels, but this time I didn't have to share them with anyone. *I didn't use the laundry room, but apparently the washing machine was free and the dryer cost 100yen per 20 minutes. Assuming the drying isn't "the slowest dryer I've yet to use in Japan" then this should come out to being a fine price for laundry. *The TV didn't prevent my from plugging in my Switch and playing some games. **Neutral: *Front desk was on the 4th floor, which I didn't see the sign saying until I'd taken a lap around the building, wondering where to go. *The two vending machines sold 'stuff I might buy,' but alas no hot coffee (which seems to require me to go to conbini for my after-meal cans of hot coffee, in Aomori in the summer). *There's apparently a public bath here, but I didn't use it. **Negatives: My view from the window was 'mostly of a wall,' although there was some cityscape from a certain angle.

DO NOT STAY AT THIS HOTEL. Dirty linen, I'll politely call it human chocolate on bed covers, management moved us to another room (more on that later), I thought surely what we just experienced must be a one off.....well I checked the bed in the new room, no human chocolate but a nice curly pubic hair. Reported it to management, they asked if they could clean the room as we went to dinner, obviously I said yes, please clean it. Well we returned from dinner and the pubic hair was gone but had been replaced with a nice long hair..... We asked management if they were aware of the bed bug plague across Japan at the moment, they said of course they were, obviously they don't care about it, basic hygiene, or their customers. The room we were transferred to was a suite, a suite straight out of somewhere around 1980, if your into filthy beds, old carpet, peeling wall paper and tiny bathrooms with cracked basins that even the smallest person will struggle with, this is the place for you, otherwise choose a park bench closer to the centre of town. How this shack gets 4 stars is a mystery. One positive is management did refund us and gave us a fresh fruit, however, I would not stay here again even if it was free.