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| Haikyo / Ruins | Queen Chateau Soapland Haikyo | (Entered Feb. 23, 2010) |
Recent Haikyo/Ruins: | |||
Surrounded by other adult-themed entertainment venues, it's hard to imagine what would've caused the Queen Chateau Soapland to fall by the wayside, certainly not a lack of customers or bankruptcy, as there were other soaplands in operation right across the street from it.
In the past I've always haikyoed with at least one other person, but this marked my first solo haikyo experience. I guess I would've preferred to have company except that every other haikyoer I know has already been here. Still, the solo aspect of it wasn't too different, as even when I go with other people we always end up spliting up and doing our own thing. The main differences were that I had to make my own map and get there by myself, plus the fact that there was nobody to talk with on the 4+ hours spent on the train getting to and from Ibaraki.
To those of you unfamiliar with Japan and the term soapland, it's basically a place where men (although there is a small percentage catering to women) can be bathed by a young woman. I'll leave the finer details of what else goes on here to your imaginations.
Finding the Queen Chateau was relatively easy, and although entry into the building was simple too, it was made more difficult by the fact that pimps and customers of the nearby open soaplands and massage parlours were right there on the street watching. I arrived around 3:00 in the afternoon, a relatively quiet time, so I made my way inside during a brief lull in car and pedestrian traffic. However I left around 5:00pm when business was just starting to pick up, so getting out was that much harder, though I managed to leave again without being spotted.
I'll be honest, as far as the haikyo I've been to go, the Queen Chateau was definitely subpar. It's fairly large with 6 floors, but after the first floor there is nothing different or interesting about it, all the rooms are basically the same.
Floors 2 to 6 are mirror copies of each other, each floor having 3 rooms, and each one being equipped with a bathtub, bed and usually a chair. After looking around the first few rooms, I got bored and only gave all the other ones cursory glances.
Obviously the below shot was set up, but not by me. I found these shoes posed like this, most likely from the most recent haikyoer, and couldn't resist taking my own shot.
So why did the Queen Chateau close then? A clue perhaps was in the lowest levels. There were a bunch of cramped rooms in the back, filled with narrow bunk beds and one tiny kitchen. There were no windows in the bedrooms and living down there in the mustiness must have been god awful. It isn't too hard to imagine that the girls that worked there were probably illegal immigrants, forced to work to pay off debts or what have you. Prostitution is of course illegal in Japan, and soaplands manage to live in some grey area by not explicitly advertising the obvious details of what goes on inside. My guess is that they were stepping too far and too blatantly over the line and ended up getting closed down by the authorities. Good riddance.
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Gankutsu Rock Hotel
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