Park Hyatt Hotel

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One of our goals for this trip has been to have a drink in the bar from Lost in Translation. This morning, while at the cyber café, we did a little research and found that it was in the Park Hyatt Hotel in Shinjuku. After getting back from Tokyo Tower, we changed into suits and had a glass of scotch before heading out. The Park Hyatt was about a kilometer from the subway, but unlike American hotels, there were no glowing signs outside to indicate which building it was. After a few strolls through the lobby of the building it was most likely in, we found a sign pointing to the entrance for the Hyatt and went up. By this time we were totally in character: the bar is quite fancy and we didn’t want to look out of place. We rode the mirrored elevators up until we heard some Jazz playing and saw the wait staff. We were told there was a cover charge of 2,000 Yen, but we acted like this was no big deal and went in. We were seated at the long counter; I was next to a talkative Japanese couple from Kyoto. Now it was time for a little social engineering. They asked how I liked Tokyo and what I was doing in the city. I slowly revealed my character. Fresh out of college (I assumed they wouldn’t know the ages of American college graduates), and in town on business. What kind of business? Computer Software, with IBM. When I told them I was from Chicago, they said they had visited about two years ago and had seen the Opera. Luckily, I remembered some of the schedule from two years ago, and took an educated guess that they had seen La Traviata. Bingo. We chatted a little while more and had them take our picture. We tried to take our pictures somewhat covertly so that we did not look like tourists. We ordered some 2,000 yen drinks: A Hokkaido 12 yr. old Whiskey, a Grey Goose vodka tonic, and a Siciliana. The view from the bar was spectacular, even better than Tokyo Tower. The jazz at the bar was exactly how we suspected: piano, bass, sax and female vocals, just like the movie. I said goodbye to the Japanese couple, giving them the matchbook from Kampai steakhouse, telling them to visit it if they were in town again (This was a leftover from a highschool dance, the last time I wore that suit). I figured this was a good closer. We paid the bill and left. Hopefully this will be the most expensive single drink in our lives (cover and all, it was about $4,000 yen each, for one drink). Throughout the experience, we were treated like royalty (I guess the suits helped us blend in with the high-class crowd in the hotel). We were let off of elevators first, and greeted by just about every hotel worker in the building. We made our way back to the subway. We were so excited to have pulled this off without suspicion that we didn’t even notice that we walked about a kilometer in the wrong direction from the station

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