There really is no difficulty in identifying this particular building over in one of Tokyo’s bordering prefectures.

It’s not often I venture on over to Chiba these days other than for flights from Narita Airport or the annual Tokyo ComicCon. The latter was in early December last year and wanting to see a a couple of places nearby beforehand, I decided to stop at Makuhari-Hongo station on the Sobu Line. Less than ten minutes away on foot was a building I was intrigued by and keen to see up close. It is simply called Hotel UFO (1-34-21 Makuharihongo, Hanamigawa-ku, Chiba) but this is no ordinary hotel for it is actually a love hotel.

For the uninitiated, these hotels are a popular form of short-stay pleasure accommodation where couples, secret lovers and so on go to get some much needed privacy to make out without others potentially hearing as was the case during the early postwar period when young couples often still lived in extended family dwellings.

This hotel has 24 rooms and the erm, boarding fee is 3,800 yen (off peak) and 6,800 yen at peak time.

Say the word UFO (pronounced as yufo in Japanese) to Japanese people though and many might first think of the UFO range of instant noodles from Nissin rather than the mysterious objects in the sky which might be carrying extraterrestrials! The UFO noodles (below) are highly popular in Japan and just for the sake of this post I thought I should sample them as I’d never had them before. No country makes instant noodles like Japan and these too were very nice.

Anyway, back to the main feature and below are a couple of shots of Hotel UFO from across the road. Just to be clear, I should state that I didn’t stay here or even go inside.

It’s appearance certainly reminds me of the Sapporo Dome in Hokkaido (below) but do you see any similarities?

After seeing Hotel UFO, I walked on for another ten minutes or so to photograph the place (below) which appeared in the ‘Interesting Japanese Playground Structures #14‘ post back in July!

It was another 35 minute walk from there (armed with my Star Wars costumes and lightsaber!) to Makuhari Messe where Tokyo ComicCon (below) was being held, and my sci-fi adventures for the day could continue!

Click here to read ‘On The C*cks Trail……In Chiba!!’ 

Click here to read ‘Tokyo ComicCon 2017’ 

Click here to read ‘Cosplaying At Tokyo ComicCon 2017’ 

Click here to read ‘Tokyo Daytripper: Chiba-jo Castle’