Byline: Tokyo
My first blog from a cyberoffice. Pretty incredible place in the Shibuya district.
The computer at the house I regularly stay in, here in Tokyo, died a hard drive death. So a friend sent me to this cyberoffice on the 6th floor of a Pachinko Parlor.
There are 111 cubicles. Most cubicles are four feet by five feet. About 25 cubicles are four feet by six feet; they are for couples. “What?” you may ask.
The couples booths have a small leather bench with one computer and one video screen. Possibly they are for game playing and possibly watching DVDs in private. This cyberoffice is open 24 hours a day and has special low midnight to 6am rates. There may be other uses --- I can only speculate.
For no reason I can comprehend, there is an area with eight women only cubicles.
The floor has thousands of CDs and great headsets in every cubicle. There are many thousands of DVDs on shelves on the walls, like a library. All computer screens are large.
The price is about $3.75 for the first hour and $3.00 thereafter. That includes free soft drinks of every imaginable sort, including espresso. There is cubicle food service with reasonable prices and a wide range of delectables.
Right now the floor is more than half full at 7pm. It is totally quiet, totally quiet.
Ironic: As a writer I usually get paid. Right now I’m paying to write.