| "House
of Gaijin-san" by
Yutaka Otsuka
I have several purposes to travel.
One of them is to stay in rooms at hotels or guesthouses. It makes me feel
that I am away from my usual life.
I consider one's own room a precious place, for separating working(public)
time and private time is easy, but when it comes to a place or a space, it's
not.
I think that we don't have much of a real private place, other than our very
own bedroom.
A hotel or a guesthouse room, is an instant private place for me, when I'm
traveling.
Makes me relax, feel secure, but it's not the room I usually live.
Realizing that, is the moment I feel I 'm far away from home - I like it.
When I went to south Asian countries for the first time, I found that there's
an accommodation style called "guesthouse".
Different from the hotels that I knew of, rooms rates were much cheaper, so
there were chances of rooms being not clean, or small, but backpackers from
all over the world seemed to be happy staying at such rooms.
Because the rates are cheap, many people stay longer than hotels. There were
large rooms called "dormitory" with bunk beds.
People gather, exchange travel information, and leave for next destination.
I thought that, hotels are comparable to condominiums, where as guesthouses
to old styled apartments or school dormitories.
In a guesthouse, people communicate more, because usually there's a common
area in the building.
Compared with condominiums or large apartments, that residents often don't
know each other very well even after spending years there, guesthouse, I think,
is a very unique place in a city.
I wondered, do we have guesthouses in our country ?
Tokyo, is not a very comfortable city for foreign people.
Things are expensive, and not many people speak English. But still, many people
stay here for various reasons.
We have many hotels, but just as other things, they are expensive. For most
people, it's not easy to stay long.
And yes, I found that we do.
But it was different from the ones I saw in Thailand or in India. People stay
much longer. Months, or even years.
And I found that they are called by a different and a strange name ... "Gaijin
House".
*If you are interested in the photographs, and wish to
contact Yutaka Otsuka, just write to him at:  or you can visit his website : http://otsukayutaka.com
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