In Japan this past April, two very different accommodations made me re-evaluate what a hotel experience should be about. Upon arriving to Kyoto,my first night was spent in a discreet, upscale ryokan called Yuzuya Ryokan. A ryokan is a deeply human, tactile, catered experience. It harkens back to nostalgic times of voyage and hospitality. During the Edo Period (which ran from 1603 to 1868), Japan was ruled with an iron fist by a military shogunate who introduced a strict policy ofsakoku, or isolationism, completely shutting off Japan to the world and banning international travel for around 200 years. The era also brought a newfound safety and prosperity to the populace and many Japanese were able to travel within their own country for the very first time. They went on long pilgrimages, trips to hot springs and sites of historical interest, and new travel inns sprung up along popular routes to cater to weary travelers. These were called ryokans, and today range from the very basic to high-end.

The next day, I packed up my bags and headed to 9 Hours Kyoto, a capsule hotel about ten minutes drive away. For those unfamiliar with the capsule hotel concept (as I was), you check in, are given your essentials and a key to your ‘capsule’ for the night where you sleep in a room with fellow travelers. A capsule hotel is a sanitized sci-fi laboratory of sleep. It reminds you that you’re just a cog in a well-oiled machine.

When you enter a ryokan, a lady attendant bustles over to you and bows, takes your shoes (which you need to remove before entering the main room), unloads your bags, gives you a steaming cup of green tea and soft leather shoes, and as water tinkles down the interior courtyard waterfall you begin to notice how the materials that surround you are weathered, natural and soothing. A capsule hotel is white. Plastic. It gleams and shines like a new piece of technology before you’ve removed that satisfying plastic film. Its colors are devoid of life — white, grey, black, glistening cream. It reflects any lights and energy that touches its surface. A ryokan absorbs — the worn wood and chiseled stone play with shadows and trick your eyes. It’s a dim, calm place, a refuge from the world, whereas a capsule hotel has no shadows, nowhere to hide – all is in the open.

When it comes to the notion of personal space, I consider myself a pretty normal person. I like to roam, to be independent and have my own room to breathe, but I also seek human contact and shared smiles. Both hotels pushed my limits a little. In a ryokan, your attendant pops out of nowhere the moment you leave your room, miraculously anticipating your movements before you’ve even thought of them yourself. The attendant comes in and offers you tea, language barriers are tricky so you put on your best smile and attempt body language instead. Every time you leave your room it shifts form as she replaces the small table and makes your futon bed on the floor. I came back for a quick nap, in vain. The bed was now gone. It feels a little overwhelming. You are asked to interact constantly. Occasionally, I just wanted to leave my room and wander about without needing to say why, where or when.

But in a capsule hotel, on the other hand, you lose all notion of individuality and personal space. All your movements are shared and exposed, and you begin to feel a little like a robot from a Kubrick movie. And you just don’t care — because here is maybe the upside of a capsule hotel. You’re anonymous. And sometimes it’s nice to be anonymous. Sometimes we don’t want interaction, explanations, or fluff — we want to arrive, clean and sleep, exchange a minimum of words and move on. It’s efficient — the hotel is named 9 Hours because those few hours are all you need to get you back on your way.

As for the sleeping experience itself, here was the spooky part of the capsule hotel. As I mentioned earlier, ryokans are built from natural, tactile materials and your bedroom has sliding shoji doors with silk screens and paper walls which you can customize any way you please. The room becomes your own little shrine as you sashay about in your soft gown and contemplate the meaning of the calligraphy scrolls in the alcove. The bedrooms in the capsule hotel are an alternate reality. The chamber was dark, a deep steel blue, and the capsules were lit up by a glowing beige light and smooth corners of synthetic plastic. Mine had a row of about fifteen capsules, two capsules high, and as much as I love bunk beds and was happy to get given top bunk, the moment I stepped into the bed I felt like I was about to undergo a medical procedure (think MRI machine); little wires would pop out the walls into my brain and arms and stomach and connect me back to the matrix, my memory erased, back to the motherboard. This feeling was further amplified by the lack of conversation between the people in the upstairs bathroom, everyone brushing washing then sleeping like robots, and the deathly, humming mechanical silence of the room. It was so, so eerily quiet. The silence was that of a machine. I woke up in the night because of the silence.

During the night in 9 Hours, a girl came back drunk and woke up the room. Her voice softly penetrated my dreams as she spoke into the night… “God, it’s deathly quiet here. Why are you all so quiet? Hello? Anyone..? Someone speak! Ha, ha, ha…. I see…. All just ghosts…”. It made me shiver. Her voice dripped something dangerous, siliceous. Maybe the danger lay in her words that defied the order of our well-organized silence. She broke the code. I was scared she would start trying our blinds to wake us up, that she would grab my feet and enter my bunk and maybe no one would come to help because they were each perfectly safe and anonymous in their own capsule.

Apart from the evident contrasts that I experienced, these two nights also made me ask myself… What do I look for in a hotel? Intimacy with privacy. Practicality combined with seamless sensoriality. The need to feel like people care about me, but not too much. Don’t be “in my face”. Perhaps this can be achieved by a well meaning concierge, who makes himself friendly and available but also firmly remains downstairs until called upon. Technology in the room needs to be discreet and human — wooden nobs and panels, intuitive layout and symbols, approachable. A comfortable bed and fluffy pillows. Free amenities that make me feel special — snacks, toiletries, trinkets, whatever. Dimmable lighting — let me choose what I’m in the mood for. If a hotel could try to combine the efficacy and practicality of a capsule hotel with the warmth and nostalgia of the ryokan, I would leave a happy traveler — or perhaps even consider rebooking another night.