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This Bookshop Hotel In Japan Lets Travellers Fall Asleep Surrounded by 5,000 Books
This will be every book-lover's dream...
Details
Written by: Stuart Kenny
Travelling is our favourite thing in the world here at Mpora, and one of our favourite things to do between the adventures is settle down with a good book, whether on the latest mountain train journey or before we go to bed.
So why not take it one step further and fall asleep in a bookshop on your travels? It sounds good to us.
A bibliophile hotel called Book and Bed hotel opened up in Tokyo on November 5 last year – and it’s been such a success that the company have just opened their second location in Kyoto.
The Tokyo location allows travellers to hire out a booth or compartment within a library filled with over 2,000 books in a variety of languages.
The Kyoto hotel is even bigger, with 5000 books surrounding the compartments.
Book and Bed advertise as “an accommodation bookshop” – though bizarrely, they also state on their website that “the perfect setting for a good nights sleep is something you will not find here.”
The thinking behind this is: “There are no comfortable mattresses, fluffy pillows nor lightweight and warm down duvets. What we do offer is an experience while reading a book (or comic book). An experience shared by everyone at least once : the blissful “instant of falling asleep”. It is already 2 am but you think just a little more… with heavy drooping eye lids you continue reading only to realize you have fallen asleep.
“Our concept is thus a readers haven – an accommodation bookshop. (Books aren’t sold, though. It’s just an expression.) Dozing off obliviously during your treasured pasttime is the finest “moment of sleep”, don’t you agree? With books as our central theme, we decided to create a hostel offering the greatest “moment of sleep”.”
Designed by Makoto Tanijiri and Ai Yoshida of Suppose Design Office, this is sure to be every bibliophile’s dream accommodation. We’re already dreaming of turning our bedroom back home into something similar, though we’re not sure how the landlord would feel come flat inspection time.
At the Book and Bed hotel you can hire out a ‘compact’ compartment measuring 205 x 85 cm or a ‘standard’ measuring 2025 x 129 cm, with the prices ranging from an affordable 3800 yen to 6000 (£26-42) depending on which you pick.
Sure, that accommodation isn’t huge, but when you’re wrapped up and have your head buried in a book, you’ll be in a whole different world!
The Tokyo location allows travellers to hire out a booth or compartment within a library filled with over 2,000 books in a variety of languages.
The Kyoto hotel is even bigger, with 5000 books surrounding the compartments.
Book and Bed advertise as “an accommodation bookshop” – though bizarrely, they also state on their website that “the perfect setting for a good nights sleep is something you will not find here.”
The thinking behind this is: “There are no comfortable mattresses, fluffy pillows nor lightweight and warm down duvets. What we do offer is an experience while reading a book (or comic book). An experience shared by everyone at least once : the blissful “instant of falling asleep”. It is already 2 am but you think just a little more… with heavy drooping eye lids you continue reading only to realize you have fallen asleep.
“Our concept is thus a readers haven – an accommodation bookshop. (Books aren’t sold, though. It’s just an expression.) Dozing off obliviously during your treasured pasttime is the finest “moment of sleep”, don’t you agree? With books as our central theme, we decided to create a hostel offering the greatest “moment of sleep”.”
Designed by Makoto Tanijiri and Ai Yoshida of Suppose Design Office, this is sure to be every bibliophile’s dream accommodation. We’re already dreaming of turning our bedroom back home into something similar, though we’re not sure how the landlord would feel come flat inspection time.
At the Book and Bed hotel you can hire out a ‘compact’ compartment measuring 205 x 85 cm or a ‘standard’ measuring 2025 x 129 cm, with the prices ranging from an affordable 3800 yen to 6000 (£26-42) depending on which you pick.
Sure, that accommodation isn’t huge, but when you’re wrapped up and have your head buried in a book, you’ll be in a whole different world!
