The pioneer express. [volume] (Pembina, Dakota [N.D.]) 1883-1928, 1884-04-18
JAPANESE HOTELS.
How Travellers are Entertained
Prices or Lodging.

How Travellers are Entertained
Prices or Lodging.
Boston Transcript:
The front Of the house is entirely open
to the street In the daytime. What serves
for the Office is in the front. One will
nearly always sec a list of prices for
lodging hung in the neighborhood Oft
kitchen.
As you ride b, q hotel on q hot day it
looks very inviting. If the house be q
large one, you will see room after room
stretching backward. In the center Of
the house is an open court. in which is a
can make. Rockeries Of old and curious
tie pond with goldfish. The parlor is the
back room of the house.
There is really very little difference in
rooms; as none of them have one soli-
tary piece Of furniture. The woodwork
of q parlor is sometimes very pretty,
and there are pictures, with sometimes
poem written in large characters on
silk, hanging on the walls. These rooms
are generally scrupulously clean. The
floors of all Japanese houses are covered
with thick straw mats. On entering q
hotel (or any house) your shoes must
come of. A Japanese never wears any.
thing heavier than a stocking while in
the house. Wherever there is any
woodwork in the floor, it is kept highly
polished, as are also the verandas
which are an indispensable accompani-
ment to hotel, as it is by them that the
various rooms are reached. The wood
is 80 smooth that it will show scratch,
or the mark made by nail in the shoe,
as easily as polished table would do go.
On arriving at hotel you are shown
a room, and .girl waiter Immediately
brings tea and cake. The Japanese Gus
tom is to give little present of money
at this time; q greater or les sum &C.
cordtng to the amount of attention you
may demand.
The prices of lodging are generally
fixed at stated sums for first, second and
third class dodgers. This price includes
supper. breakfast and lodging. Guests
do not remain in hotel during the day,
excepting ut the summer or health re-
sorts. By o'clock in the morning the
note: is empty. Meals are invariably
served in different rooms. This requires
q large number Of waiting girls.
Food is served on small, 10 ~ tables, just
raised from the floor. The price of first
class lodging with meals) isabout thirty.
five cents. That is to Japanese. For
eigners are charged for room rent and
for all the food served. Last week ! put
up at hotel over night. Ny Japanese
teacher was with me. He had one par
lor and l had another. Our food, rooms
and bedding we're precisely alike. He
was charged forty-five cents for room
only, and in addition for every item of
food: refused to pay my bill, but was
finally obliged to pay It, or should have
made myself Q great deal of trouble.
Most hotels prefer not to take foreigners
at any price. OF course, where we were
served with chairs, table and bed we are
willing to pay extra for them. But you
seldom find these articles except on the
main roads Of travel. One must be tired in
order to sleep on the floor, lying on one
thick blanket, with another similar one
fcra cover.
There is no possible way TO fasten the
room at night. There are no doors like
our doors. The division between rooms,
as we'll as between the room and
the outer veranda, is nothing but
paper; payer sliding doors, which can be
lifted out of their gre owes with the great
est Of ease, converting the, house into
one large room. l have slept (?) for q
number of nights in a room all four sides
of which could be taken away in five
minutes time, and which. of course
could be opened by any one. Strange
as it may seem, there is very seldom
anything like robbery. Things must be
left about the room, as one can not put
all his possessions under the pillow. =.