It pays to know that internet cafes in Japan have more than meets the eye. Far from being simply hubs where you can find a pc and a net connection, one can comes across a substancial array of alternate forms of entertainment.

Lists of whats available include: super high speed 100Mbps internet access. Playstation 2 games (though are mostly old cack). DVD's. Libraries full of comics for the manga freaks out there. Billiards, darts, tanning rooms, shower cubicles with washing items (I'm not making that up). Foot baths, free soft drinks. ice-cream vending machines. You can also get beer to bolster a Friday night with, and some half-decent microwave food. Comfy Japanese style rooms where you take your shoes off and relax on a cushioned floor. Internet cafes are good places to bum around for anything, even for dates.

At Cybac, or Media Cafe Popeye, for about 1500 yen you can get an 8 hour package, and a pretty comfortable sofa to sleep on. That or massage chairs, which are awesome for taking off a hard days traipsing around. They've saved me from a wet park bench on many of my travels in Japan.

Naturally, being a net cafe, you can also play all the latest online games there, such as Lineage and Warcraft. Counterstrike is still popular too. Cybac usually has a corner where game geeks can play to their hearts content for about 6 hours at a reduced rate.

For private rooms, the cost is around 300 yen for 30 minutes, and after that about 70 yen per 10 minutes. 3 hours packages are 1000 yen. A 5-8 hours package (depending on where you go), is around 1,400 yen, though sometimes more pricy on weekends and national holidays. Due to the reasonable pricing, you often get many Japanese people and streetwise foreigners from other cities staying at the internet cafes instead of hotels. This is actually the cheapest form of accommodation you could find in Japan, cheaper than most capsule hotels, even. With over 200 dimly lit and comfortable rooms in the bigger Tokyo net cafes, and around 80 in most other big cities, it's unlikely you'll ever find yourself without a place to park yourself should you visit one.

Look for the following signs about town.

Page Contributors - Kris