Several weeks ago I wrote a post on foreigner friendly soaplands in Tokyo. That post was made with information shared by a Japanese fellow named Ryuji who has set up a website of his own.
Some commented on the rather high rates at the shops mentioned in that post. Soaplands are not inexpensive places, but there are quite a few that charge less than places like Don Juan. One of those is Darling Harbour in the Yoshiwara area of Tokyo. While the Yoshiwara pleasure district is filled with soaplands the reality is that many of them simply will not accept foreign customers, especially if they cannot speak Japanese.
That is not the case at Darling Harbour, which not only accepts gaijin but warmly welcomes them inside. The first time I tried to find the place I ended up around the corner. Unable to locate it I finally asked the doorman at another soapland who was very happy to walk me there himself. Darling Harbour has an open door with a place just inside for customers to remove their shoes and put on a pair of house slippers. These slippers are incredibly tiny and make any attempt at walking into the place with confidence a guaranteed failure.
The addition of stairs into the equation make things even more fun. There are a number of Japanese guys at the front of the shop, all dressed in black suits. One of these guys can speak a tiny bit of English, which happens to be just enough to get things rolling easily.
Once the customer is shown to a small room off to the side they will be shown photos of the women available at the time. There is never a huge spread in my experience, with two or three being the norm. Not a whole lot can be told from these photos but on the bright side all of the ladies who work at Darling Harbour seem to be at least acceptable in the looks department, though most appear to be approaching or even over the age of The customer will also be asked to select a course, with the 70 minute set for 29, Yen After a customer chooses a masseuse and a session length they will have to wait a few minutes in the aforementioned room.
