I've been in this country for almost five months, but until this week there was a part of Tokyo hiding from me. If it weren't for my money-dropping, (apparently) sleep deprived, foot-aching aunt and uncle I would never have experienced it.
Day One
I spend the day souvenir shopping for my friends in Asakusa, which is more or less on the way to the airport so I decide to go meet Nur and Jeff. They weren't expecting me, so I was a pleasant surprise (I'm sure). The train ride to Shinjuku was a little long and uneventful but it was nice to be with them. From the station we took a taxi. We pull up to the hotel and the stewards greet us, calling Jeff by name. They escort us to the lobby and have our check-in paperwork elegantly displayed on a big desk. After 20 minutes of deciding what room we actually wanted (a bigger one that looks out both toward the east (Mt. Fuji) and south) we settled in.
Now this room is not like any hotel room I've ever been in. Huge windows, 43rd floor overlooking the city, a giant king sized bed (they put a "cot" in for me, granted it was the best bed I've slept on in months), large cabinet space for mini-fridge, tea and coffee sets, drawers and extensive alcohol collection. There was a huge flat screen tv, a desk-table and an arm chair, a dressing room with closet and a safe (for us to keep our products in...). Then there's the bathroom. The toilet seat was heated ( I loved it, Nur and Jeff weren't big fans, said it was too hot- then again they kept the room at 20 degrees Celsius), the shower shot water from three different places, all adjustable, and the bath tub was next to the window, looking out on the city. No big deal right?
Day Two
So if you were staying in a room like this you would want to spend a lot of time in it too, right? That's the idea we lived by for these few days. The first night I went back to my place and returned to the hotel in the morning. We had a buffet breakfast and went out to Harajuku and Shinjuku. We took the train to Harajuku, saw Meiji Shrine, walked down the shopping street and walked to Shibuya. We were minutes from the the famous intersection, but never made it there. We ate in a cheap restaurant and left unsatisfied, into the rain. Since I'm such a nice niece I gave Nur RoboSaru (my umbrella) and faced the rain uncovered. We found a taxi station and headed home. We got to the hotel around 4 and that was that for the day. Since both of them had become temporary crippled with a variety of foot ailments, I ventured to the conbini to buy a variety of Japanese snacks and for the second night in a row, that was dinner. High class enough for you? I kind of liked walking into, what has to be one of the classiest hotels in the country, with a bag of Coke and chips from 711. Jeff fell asleep around 5, Nur fell asleep a little earlier and I played on the fast wireless internet.
At some point in the day, as we walked back toward our room we spot Noel Gallagher from Oasis walking in the opposite direction down the hall. I see him and I'm 90% sure it's him, so I turn to Nur and she's in shock, barely able to keep walking. Definitely him.
Day Three:
After getting kicked out of bed really early (since they both went to bed at ridiculous times) we went down to breakfast. I had delicious french toast. We walked to the station to go to more department stores, because we had fun doing that the day before, but since it was still early nothing was open. We instead went to Shinjuku park and enjoyed a nice, random, rain and wind fiasco and a nice garden. After awhile Nur had gone into shopping withdrawal so we made it to the nearest Lush and bought some bath product. phew! After some poor experiments with another shopping center, we sat down for an Okononmiyaki lunch which turned out to be really fun. At this place we cooked it ourselves, so I pretended to know what I was doing and served up some tasty food (Jeff helped).
We took a hotel break for awhile, lounged, napped, watched more Mtv Japan, ate 6 fancy pastries and then headed to the New York Bar, then Grill for drinks and dinner. This time I wore flats. We had some ridiculously expensive drinks and Pig oil french fries and enjoyed the Tokyo night sky from 52 stories up. It was nice. Then they started playing some live jazz and we eventually sauntered over to our table in the restaurant. The food was delicious. According the Food Art rules I had to get an appetizer and a main entree and that I did. I had white asparagus tenpura with some kind of raw tuna followed by veal with herb butter (they both had much more elegant descriptions on the menu, mind you). Nur had tartar followed by a steak of some kinda and Jeff had some other fancy appetizer and a different steak. All the food was amazingly delicious, I was quite satisfied, thanks Food Art.
And then we just realized, bathed in bubbles and went to sleep.
Day Four:
Woke up early again and went down to breakfast. Today's breakfast was special, and no not only because I remembered to siv my tea every time I poured it. As we sat and ate, two men were seated at the table next to us. One had the same look as Noel Gallagher and a British accent and the other was a bigger guy. Nur and I joked that he was in the band and the big guy was the sound technician. Then a Japanese guy joined them and we said they were jamming together. Finally a woman came in and called her as the manager/ public relations. Sure enough, they talk about some cds and the van, blah blah and she pulls out a paper with "Oasis" written in big letters on the top. Talk about exciting. Nur and I are dying by this point and talking about it walking back to the room when we see Noel again, flirting with some Japanese girls in the lobby. If one time wasn't enough, Nur stops in her tracks, mouth gaping and hands flailing. Could you be anymore obvious? We look up the band online and find out that the guy we were sitting next to was Gem Archer, the guitarist/harmonica player of Oasis. Mr. Archer, we know what you had for breakfast "Three bowls of corn flakes," as he had announced. That was exiting.
We took a cab to Shibuya because Nur was set on seeing the intersection. So we saw that and wondered the streets for awhile until we came to Tokyu, which is the Park Hyatt equivalent of a department store. This is where the fancy, ridiculously expensive stuff was, so we had fun looking around and buying pillow cases. In the same building was a market where we saw $50 cherries, a $50 mini square watermelon and all kinds of other overly expensive foods. It was fun. In the same building was a museum with an exhibit of eye-teasing art. It was interesting but there were too many people inside and it was not comfortable so Nur and I viewed, made it out of there and waited for Jeff while sipping fancy beverages.
After some hotel room recuperation we headed out to a conveyor belt sushi restaurant that a random lady had recommended to us the day before (which was really weird by the way). The food was good, it was cheap and it was fast. So we were back in the hotel and going to bed by 8.
Now here I am, sitting in an armchair on top of Tokyo, looking out at city lights, waiting to see if I can view the fireworks and typing a blog, while Nur and Jeff are asleep... at 9 pm. Oh the life of luxury. It's fine though. We've had a lot of fun and milked this hotel room for all its worth (which is a lot). Tomorrow they head out and I'm back to the guest-house life for my last few days in Japan.
I'm sure there are things I've forgotten to write, so maybe I'll add them in later, maybe you'll hear it from them.
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