When in Rome

After staying just briefly at our first hotel in Gifu, Japan (a name which I could not remember for the life of me and kept calling Gufi instead, as in Goofy) we moved to a new hotel closer to our actual planned destinations in Takayama. This hotel was rather out in the boonies, but that could not be helped, as it was the only reasonably priced hotel still available when Evelyn booked, resulting in the need for a 10 minute walk to the bus stop and then a ride into the center of town each day. A bit inconvenient, but not really much of a bother. 

There were, however, a couple of strange things immediately apparent when we entered the hotel. One was that the room was supplied with several condoms. One sometimes finds a wrapped chocolate on the bed pillows, but in this case we found wrapped condoms. As we began to look around and scan the hotel information, Evelyn noted that a number of costumes could be obtained from the manager for cosplay activities. Lol. What kind of hotel was this?

Strange as well was the fact that, as the manager pointed out, whenever our door was shut it would lock us in, making it necessary to call manager to let us out. And whenever we left, we would be locked out until the next check in time, which would be at 6:00 in the evening. That seemed actually rather outrageous to me. I said, But we have paid for five days and nights here, have we not? If every time we leave we are locked out, and cannot, according to the rules, get back in until after 6:00 in the evening, what have we paid for? Sorry, sorry, the manager said, which appeared to be her entire English vocabulary. But, I like to go outside to smoke, I explained. How can I go out and smoke if I will be locked out every time? Well, we got around that simply by just leaving the door wide open, as she advised. 

Nonetheless, I couldn't help but wonder about unforeseen events. What if, for instance, there should be a fire? And what if the manager was unconscious from smoke inhalation? And here we are locked in our room! Absurd, right? Now, as it happened, we were going to be out all day anyway and wouldn't be back again till check in time, but what if some unforeseen circumstance had happened, such as an illness? Say one of us had been sick and really did not feel like going out in the cold all day? That's the weird thing. According to the rules, one had no choice but to check out of the room by noon, physically leave, and not check in again until 6:00. Or was it 8? I forget. Is this not absurd? 

Ah well, when in Rome, do as the absurd Romans do, I guess. It's not like you have a choice.