A long time ago, I went with my then girlfriend to Hakone. I can't remember where, but during our walk we came across this really long roller-slide thing. I'd never seen anything like it, and I really want to give it a ride. But there was a light rain falling all day, and as I didn't see anybody else riding it, I thought that it might be closed for the day. But there was a woman in the ticket booth, so I went up and asked if I could ride. Her demure response was "Well, I don't think it's a good idea to ride today, but..." (あのぅ、今日はちょっと乗らないほうがいいと思うんですけど.…) I took that to mean that I had a choice in the matter, so I said "OK, if that means I have a choice, then I really want to ride!" She looked quite uncomfortable, but she took my money and let me ride. Sure enough, the slide was way slicker than normal, and even though I cut my hands up trying to stop at the end, I still slide completely passed the landing pad and bruised my coccyx something good. After my girlfriend finished laughing her butt off, I asked her "If it was so dangerous, why didn't she tell me not to ride!?" And the girlfriend goes, "You baka! That is what she told you!" And that's when I learned that polite Japanese understate their protestations in order to avoid offending others. Japanese would have understood the ticket lady to be saying "No, you can't ride today."

The point of that long-winded aside is that, in the years since then, it seems that some of that Japaneseness has seeped into my English. So when I say this:

What I mean is "Yes, I know Prince Hotels can have small dingy rooms with poor service, lousy food, bad beds, etc., and I wouldn't recommend it to anyone that didn't know what they were getting into." Having admitted that those things are not great, I still find enjoyment in the Prince Hotels anyway as a monument to a bygone era in Japan.

So I probably could have stated that part a bit stronger. I don't deny anyone the right to say that the rooms and the service of the Prince Hotels are/were horrible, but I already intended to concede that point.

(The closest thing to the best of both worlds is the Odawara Hilton. All the trappings of Japanese bubble-era hedonism with Hilton quality rooms and amenities.)