Small sleeping units, large shared rooms

Every room is the same size. citizenM builds them off site as finished modules, slots them into the frame, and spends the saved floor area on the ground floor instead. A wall-to-wall window, a king bed against it, a tablet that runs the blinds, the lights and the temperature; nothing else competes for space.

The trade is plain, and it works. Guests get a compact, well-made sleeping cabin upstairs and a large living room downstairs, filled with art, books, long tables and a bar that runs from breakfast to late. The hotel sits downtown, walking distance from Broadway, the honky-tonks and the Music City Center.

The name is the schedule. One hour to shower, seven to sleep, one to get ready — nine hours, priced and designed around exactly that. 9h runs the format across Japan, and the Naha branch brings it to Okinawa's main city.

White moulded sleeping pods stack in two tiers along quiet corridors. Luggage, clothes and washing happen on a separate floor, so the sleeping level stays dark and silent. Men and women use separate floors. Signage is pictographic and minimal, the palette is white and grey throughout, and check-in is quick by design. Kokusai-dori and Naha's monorail are close by.

Sapporo's Susukino district runs late, and this hotel is built for people coming back into it. MyCUBE offers cabin-style compact units, not open-mouthed capsules — each one enclosed, lockable in practice, with a bed, a light and somewhere to put a bag.

Bathing is communal and Japanese in format, with a large shared bath instead of en-suite showers. Lounge space downstairs covers the rest: somewhere to sit, work and eat outside the sleeping floor. Susukino's food streets are at the door, and Odori Park and Sapporo Station sit a short subway ride north.