ATAMI, Shizuoka Pref. -- Tamae "Meme" Ono remembers fondly the late 1980s when the hot spring resort of Atami was a glamorous place to be.

"Things were electrifying back in those days. We used to have many customers spend fortunes on geisha -- sometimes one person paid for 10 geisha," the 54-year-old manager of a geisha house said.

Ono, who left her home in Osaka at 15 to become a geisha in Atami, witnessed the once-glitzy city's fall when the economic bubble burst and people began to look elsewhere to spend their holidays.