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Published: October 19th 2009
Bon Voyage
Living it up in Biz ClassHelloooooooo family and friends!
I know this blog has been a long time coming but I've been a little busy. Arranging hotels, transportation and itineraries are exhausting and time intensive activities. I can't believe I've actually been travelling for over a month already. Time has really flown by. Glenn and I are into the last week of our 5 weeks in Japan. We have seen and done so much that it really is hard to list them at this point so I'll just give you the highlights.
If you get a chance, do fly in those lovely pods in business class if you have to be on a plane for a long flight. Our flight was just over 14 hours and I wished it was longer! So many movies and so little time! Initially, I was hesitant to use so many points on one flight but Glenn explained to me that $ to points, business class tickets are the best value for our points. Well, that assuaged my frugal lil asian heart of its feelings of buyer's regret. I say......bring on the caviar!!!!
The trip over to Japan went very smoothly until we left the airport. We cleared
Imperial Palace
the Queen is in.... customs and immigration quickly and looked forward to getting to our hotel. Unfortunately, our airport limo bus just left and we had to wait 50 minutes for the next one. This put us in the middle of rush hour so our 1 1/2 hour journey turned into a 3 hour ordeal. I was so ready for a hot meal and bed by the time we got to the hotel.
Luckily, we had a soft landing in Japan when we got to the hotel. We stayed at the Westin Tokyo and everyone we dealt with spoke English!!! It was one less stress we were grateful we didn't have to deal with after a long tiring trip. A dinner of Curry Beef on rice and then we fell into our "Heavenly Beds". That's in quotes because that is their trade mark for their specially made beds. Even though it was a Heavenly Bed, we found ours to be a firmer version of the North American one. Now we know we're in Asia.....hard mattresses!!!!
Tokyo is like any large city. It has many different neighbourhoods that offer varied highlights. We did the touristy thing and tried to take in as many
as we could. After 4 weeks, the following are the things I remember most about Tokyo (not in any particular order):
- Having Sukiyaki at Chinya Restaurant in Asakusa. I was a Sukiyaki virgin so going to some place that has been making this dish for over 100 years seemed like a good bet that they knew what they were doing. Everything about the experience was strange and new. First of all, there is a guy who stands outside the restaurant that acts as a tout and a maitre d'. He directs us into the lobby where we take our shoes off and are given a shoe tag. We then sit down in a lounge area and wait. At this point, Glenn and I have no idea what's happening. It is our first meal in a real Japanese restaurant and we're not even sure what we will be eating. We felt very much like fish out of water to say the least. Finally, a hostess arrives and takes us up an elevator, then down a corridor with a lot of closed doors until we finally reach our destination. Our very own private tatami room. There is a low table
Sukiyaki
Lunch @ Chinya with a burner in the middle and cushions you have to sit on cross legged. Dorothy, you are not in Kansas anymore!!! I was trilled! Next came our waitress who brought in tea, hot towels and all the raw ingredients to cook our Sukiyaki. Sukiyaki turns out to be like a hot pot. Thinly sliced beef and veg are cooked in a specially favoured broth. Then the cooked ingredients are dipped into a bowl of raw beaten egg and you eat it. The flavour was sweet and savoury at the same time. I like it, or as they say in Japanese, ski desu! It was a real taste of Japan literally and figuratively. The waitress leaves after she starts you off and then returns after you call her. We really had to call her. There was a phone in the room!!!!
- Fashion is a serious business in Tokyo. Ladies, if you are not groomed to an inch of your life, you will feel like a slob like I did. Now, there are a wide range of styles but if you don't fit into one, you will feel out of place. My personal fav was the Anime Look. These
girls look like they just stepped out of a comic book!!! Long Big hair in hues of copper to blond. Thick black eye liner and long thick lashes. Small pink mouths. Sexy but cute clothing. Every comic geeks dream!
- Department stores are truly one stop shops here. Everything from grocery store to designer clothes. I love the individually cellophane wrapped carrots. They look so clean and perfect. No bruised or dirty fruits or vegetables on these shelves. Even the apples and oranges are individually protected with stretchy Styrofoam mesh!!!
- Mastering the Tokyo subway. Glenn gave up but I figured it out and saved the day......and our wallets!!! Though cabs are not as expensive as the guidebook makes it out to be. You still wouldn't want to take it for every trip. There are English maps and signs at all stations but something’s you really have to hunt for them amongst all the Japanese ones. It can be overwhelming because there is so much information plastered everywhere. Figuring out the fare system is another challenge but once you get the hang of it, it's a breeze.
- Having drinks and dinner at the New York Bar
in the Park Hyatt Hotel. Yes, that was the place where they shot most of the movie Lost In Translation!!! It was on the 42nd floor of the hotel overlooking Tokyo. Very very cool view. Especially at night with the lights of the city on and the red lights atop of the skyscrapers flashing. The band playing old jazz and blues standards was very good as well and added to the whole living a scene out of a movie experience. If you do decide to go, make sure you get there before 8pm. We got there at 8:10 and had to pay a $20 cover charge each!
- Shibuya Crossing is even more intensive to see in person. We’ve seen it in movies and shows but the volume of people and traffic at this intersection is incredible.
When that traffic light changes, all car traffic stops and pedestrians can cross in every direction. One of Tokyo's busiest subway and railroad station exits onto this intersection so there is an extraordinary volume of people at all times here. It makes NYC Time Square feel like a kiddie crossing!
- In Shibuya, you will also find the famous Love Hotels!
You know they are Love Hotels by the sign posted outside. It shows the rate for a REST and a STAY. One of them even had pictures of the rooms and it looked quite ordinary like a Japanese hotel room. I'm sure there must have been more interesting rooms but we didn't ask. We were perfectly happy with our hotel room!
- Sumo wrestling match. There are 3 big tournaments a year in Tokyo and we just happen to be there for one. We bought cheap seats just for the experience and we were surrounded by a school yard's worth of Australian 13 year olds who were there for the same reason. Interesting to watch the rituals and pageantries involved with the sport but we probably wouldn't go watch it again.
- Harajuku was disappointing. We went on a Sunday which was supposedly THE day to go but we just found wall to wall people everywhere. We were literally swept down the street by the hordes of people. For the first time, I really understood how people could get trampled to death if they missed a step and fell under the feet of the masses behind them. It
probably didn't help that it was Silver Week. It's a new 3 day holiday that just started this year. Most people ended up taking a whole week off and therefore there were masses of people everywhere we went in Tokyo. This holiday wasn't mentioned in my guidebook otherwise I would have scheduled things differently.
- Akihabara is Men’s version of Heaven! As soon as you exit the subway, you are confronted with multi storied buildings selling electronic goods, anime, porn, food and if you need a little human contact, there are the maid cafes! The adult entertainment stores are interesting to peruse because the higher up you go in the building the more kinky things get. Let’s just say there were electronic appliances I wouldn’t feel safe having near my body.
- I love these Japanese Toilets! I especially like the warm toilet seats. It is very relaxing! The bum wash and bidet functions are also very useful. I wouldn't make the effort to change "appliances" as you would have to do at home but if it's all in one like here.......well, it's just hygenic...and convenient. Speaking of hygiene, some washrooms also offer sanitizing spray to wipe the
toilet seat with! Also, there are even switches to control the water temperature and water pressure!!! In the Park Hyatt washroom, they even had a deodorant function. Now that's sweet. lol
Ok, enough about Tokyo. Next entry is Hokkaido.
Until then......"watch the safety" as my Dad would say!!!
Love,
Lansha
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bravo!!!
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