…to provide us with (via the Globe and Mail) a guide for finding a love hotel in Tokyo:

If you like window shopping, you’ll love looking for the perfect love hotel room. You can spot these hotels by the two prices (for a “rest” or a “stay”) marked outside, near the front door. Entering through a love hotel’s opaque glass sliding doors into its dimly lit, tasteful lobby, you’ll notice a wall with a panel with pictures of the different rooms on offer; if the picture is lit up, it’s available. You select a room by pressing the button underneath its photo, and pay the woman behind the partly obscured counter, who gives you your key. If you don’t see a room you like, check out the next establishment.

Some rules: Love hotels rent only to heterosexual couples. Threesomes aren’t welcome either, as we accidentally discovered earlier when three of our friends wandered into one love hotel and were greeted by a highly agitated woman exclaiming, “No three! No three!” Also, apparently, they’re only supposed to serve people who can speak Japanese, but we had no problem getting rooms. Love hotels are designed for discretion — some hide customers’ cars behind curtains to conceal their license plates, or strategically place walls to make it difficult to see directly into the hotel’s lobby. And while many of the rooms appeared booked, we didn’t see many patrons come or go, although we did spot couples holding hands wandering in the district, searching out the perfect love nest.