Northern Japanese town famous for its castles and cherry blossoms also has one of the country’s most unique hotels.

The town of Hirosaki, in Aomori Prefecture, is famous for its beautiful castle, and the surrounding park also happens to be one of the best cherry blossom viewing spots in northern Japan. And should you start to feel thirsty while you’re in town, you can head over to the Kajimachi neighborhood, where there are plenty of places to grab a drink.

Rather than a slick enclave of snooty lounges and pretentious velvet-roped dance clubs, Kajimachi is an old-school Japanese bar district, with izakaya pubs and small independent bars of the type that had their heyday back in the 1960s, ‘70s, and ‘80s. Step inside the Grand Palace Building, for example, and you’ll see that the first floor is a long hallway with bars on either side.

That’s how things have been inside the building since it opened back about 60 years ago. Take the stairs up to the second floor, though, and things are a little different.

At the top of the stairs is a door with a numeric keypad. Punch in the password and open the door, and it might look like you’ve unlocked access to a second floor of bars.

Each door along the hallway has a decadent, playful, and/or suggestive-sounding name written on it, such as Aijin (“Lover”), Kinu (“Silk”), Oasis, New Usagi (“New Rabbit”), or Pichipichi (“young and lively” or “tight and form-fitting,” depending on context).

Each door also the establishment’s liquor/operating license stickers posted…

…and is, once again, outfitted with a numeric keypad lock.

However, what you’ll find on the other side of the door isn’t a bar…

…but a hotel room!?!

That’s because while the first floor of the Grand Palace Building is still a working bar cluster, the second floor has been converted into a hotel called the Good Old Hotel. Each of the 11 rooms is converted from a bar that used to occupy that spot along the hallway, with their original exterior signage preserved but the interiors remodeled and turned into hotel accommodations.

You may not be able to get drinks served on the second floor, but you can drink to your heart’s content at the bars on the first floor, since you’ve got a very short walk from them to your room.

The hotel room interiors aren’t anything fancy, but they have pretty much everything you need to rest up after a night of knocking back Asahi Super Dry, chu-hi cocktails, and sake, then clean yourself up once you awaken.

▼ No pajamas are provided, but you do get towels, a hair dryer, and soap, shampoo, and conditioner, so it isn’t like this is a bare-bones bed-only hostel.

You receive the access code for the hotel’s second-floor entrance, and also the code for your individual room’s door, when you make your reservation. There’s no on-site hotel lobby staff, so having a lock on the hotel entrance keeps non-guests from wandering in by mistake.

▼ The second floor has a common-use space with a microwave. There are also hookups for a washing machine and clothes dryer, but there were no actual machines during our stay, so we’re not sure if they were being serviced or replaced or if laundry facilities simply aren’t offered.

We booked our one-night, one-person stay in the Aijin room for 4,900 yen (US$33.50) through Rakuten Travel here, and depending on dates, the rate can get even lower than that.

The closest station to the Grand Palace Building/Good Old Hotel is Chuo Hirosaki Station, from where it’s just a two or three-minute walk to the place. It’s worth keeping in mind that a hotel built above a floor of bars in a building in the middle of a bar district means that there’s a pretty good chance of seeing inebriated individuals in the neighborhood at night, so this might not be the best hotel option if you’re traveling with young children or vehement teetotalers, but it’s otherwise a very memorable place to spend a night in Japan.

Hotel information
Good Old Hotel
Address: Aomori-ken, Hirosaki-shi, Shinkajimachi 8-02
青森県弘前市新鍛冶町80-2
Website (Rakuten Travel)

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