When I decided five years ago that I wanted to be able to work and travel at the same time, I hadn't envisaged myself working in a Tokyo porn parlour servicing clients while sexually frustrated Japanese salarymen No, I really didn't see it coming. It's one of the strange little ironies of the tech age that the more prevalent a technology becomes, the more difficult it is to publicly access.
In India, internet cafes and phone booths were all over the place and cost next to nothing. Internet cafes have a status closer to cinemas - small ones don't exist, and you really have to go out of your way to find the big ones. There were also four boxes of tissues, which I used liberally to wipe my chair.
You could also purchase underwear from a vending machine. Fresh, clean underwear, that is. Not the other kind. I suppose that it's no seedier than any other adult entertainment establishments around the world.
It's just like a Love Hotel. By yourself. It was, however, a strange place to conference call with clients. Clients who don't ask you what you are wearing, anyway. I also resided in a capsule hotel in Nagoya, featuring rooms large enough for four coffins, if you emptied their contents and cremated them. I was giddy at the prospect, as I'd always just assumed that we'd all be living like this in the 21st century.
The actual 'hotel' was a bank of about 80 of these, which were actually quite comfortable and no more claustrophobic than a bunk bed. The straw 'door' - rather than, say, an air-tight steel door with no handle on the inside - helped.
