Traveling from Seattle to Tokyo on a United 777 was quite pleasant even with a 1 hour flight delay as the plane from Tokyo to Sea-Tac arrived late. It takes about 10 hours to fly non-stop from Seattle. Surprisingly it took less than 25 minutes to get off the plane, walk thru immigration, get the luggage, and exit customs although traveling on a Sunday in July probably helped. Ray and Traci then bought a ticket for the Narita Express Train which takes them to Shinagawa Station, their home for the week.
Waiting for the train was interesting – when the train arrived in Terminal 1 (the turnaround point), cleaning people got onboard and emptied/vacuumed the train. The seats also magically (automatically) turned around so passengers would be facing forward. When those tasks were completed the train left precisely on schedule (something that always happens in Japan), and went on a 1 hour journey eventually reaching Shinagawa Station. Once outside the train, the sauna that is Tokyo hit – high 80s and very humid, fortunately it was cloudy and late in the day so no direct sunshine was present. Ray and Traci found the correct exit in the rush hour crowd and crossed the street to the Shinagawa Prince Hotel.
On their first visit to Japan, Ray and Traci stayed at one of the nicest hotels either had ever seen – the Tokyo Westin. That hotel is located at Ebisu which is a few subway stops away from Shinagawa and isn’t quite the transit “hub” that Shinagawa is. At the Prince, Ray booked a deluxe double “club” room for 21000 Yen (about $200/night) that included daily breakfasts and free internet. You can join the Prince International “club” for free on the internet and then take advantage of rates which include breakfast, free internet, nicer rooms, and late checkout. While the hotel is quite a destination on its own complete with a small version of Seaworld (aquarium) and bowling alley, it lacks a gym and the small indoor/outdoor pools are usable only for a $11 fee.
Unfortunately, Ray and Traci’s top floor remodeled room was much smaller than their previous room at the Tokyo Westin. The 37th floor room was quite elegant and modern with a flat screen TV and small fridge but the floor space, dresser space, and closet space all had much to be desired. The bath was well furnished. Other than the small size, Ray’s other complaint was the a/c system while adequate would not make the room really cool especially with the window shades open. Perhaps being on a very high floor with the very large ceiling to floor window with a nice view of the Tokyo skyline had something do with the heat.
While exhausted, Ray and Traci wandered around looking for food before finding a small Ramen shop near the train station. As noted on previous visits, Tokyo is famous for having either pictures of food or models of food in their windows/on their menus and taking orders based on numbers (or letters, in this case). It is relatively easy to order food in the city just by pointing at it. Most of the small shops had basic entrees for the equivalent of $7-$10, even the fancy places had $20-40 entrees US, which certainly wouldn’t be out of line for Seattle much less New York. Calculating the time difference in Tokyo it is easy if you think of Wall Street – When the stock market opens in New York (9:30 AM EDT, 6:30 AM PDT) it is 10:30 at night in Tokyo). When the NYSE closes (4:00pm EDT, 1:00pm PDT) it is 5AM in Tokyo.
On Tuesday morning, Ray and Traci started the day by using their breakfast coupons at the Hapuna Buffet in the lobby of their hotel. Both were overwhelmed by the wide variety of western as well as Japanese breakfast/brunch foods – breads, eggs, bacon, sausage, pancakes, French toast, fruit were supplemented with rice, udon, fish, miso soup, salads. Even spaghetti with marinara sauce was served. The restaurant offers buffets 3 times a day and provides a spread that Las Vegas casinos would be envious of. After engorging themselves for the day, Ray and Traci joined their family for a trip to “Sunshine City.”
While Lexus, Mercedes and BMW may have impressive dealerships in the US, nobody can compare with Toyota – 5 stories of Toyota cars and themed education/games. Toyota had a version of the Playstation’s Grand Turismo played by multiple drivers in fancy cockpits. In addition, Ray got into one of the safety simulators and raced in very slippery conditions while crashing several times despite Toyota’s enhanced safety technologies. Besides the games, Toyota had displays about their successes in Formula 1 racing, their great technologies and interesting new concept cars. On other floors, actual marketed cars were seen complete with pricing and personnel to take orders. The salon was staffed with uniformed people who immediately wiped down each car after people touched it. The whole environment was topped off by an automatic grand piano playing music just like Nordstrom. After looking at all of the small cars Toyota currently markets in Japan, one can only see bad things ahead for their US competitors in an environment with skyrocketing gasoline prices. Gasoline is about $6.50 a gallon in Japan when regular unleaded is selling for $4.25 in Seattle.
Across the street from Sunshine City is a 6 story Sega gaming metroplex. What is especially interesting besides the state of the art videogames, were the adults only floor containing actual Las Vegas slot machines, video poker machines, Mah Jong machines, simulated horse race games and Pachinko machines. Pachinko is like vertical pinball with balls being shot upward in a glass case and falling into various targets. For years, Pachinko palaces would operate with players winning trays and trays of the balls and trading them in for cash (with a wink from government which officially outlaws gambling). They get around this by giving you a “ticket” for the balls you win, then you take the ticket across the street to get money for the ticket. Now it appears, you can win tokens from slot machines and video poker with the same mechanism to get actual cash. Ray also found machines where you lower a toy crane’s grappling hook to snag prizes – America has similar games, but what was unique about Japan was the type of prizes you win. Sega had games where you win Haagan-Daaz ice cream bars and boxes of Ritz crackers.
Why anyone would pay $1 for a chance to win an ice cream or Ritz Crackers tests the imagination. Other similar machines had players try to grab difficult objects to win a Nintendo DS. From Sega World, Ray and Traci met up with their relatives and everyone went to Café du Monde. The first interesting story was how they found the Café – supposedly near the Ikebukuro Station west exit. The group went to the exit and saw no Café du Monde. After asking an employee at a coffee shop next to the station exit for directions, she took it upon herself to walk us over to the competing establishment which was 2 blocks from the station. Service is really amazing in Japan! Café du Monde is a world famous restaurant from New Orleans that features beignettes, a tasty pastry. The group enjoyed the afternoon treat before venturing back to the hotel.
For dinner, Traci’s entire family got together (12 people) but needed to split up to get into a restaurant. Ray and Traci ate at a place called Transfer which has a New York Subway décor (signage and a copy of a passenger car). Ray had a steak/pasta/salad combination and Traci had a seafood stew. Ray thought all things considered ($17 price) that the meal was quite satisfactory while Traci thought the best part of her meal was the rice. The group finished the night off by having gelato sold near the entrance to the Shinagawa Prince.
