Hotel New Otani Tokyo Chiyoda

I'm not entirely sure why, but today was a day that Dad let me sleep in. Normally, we have so many things planned in our days that I'm up at 8 am, to be down in the hotel restaurant by 9. Today, it was closer to 10 that I groggily sat up in bed, wondering what had happened. Knowing the chore that lay ahead of us, I guess he just decided to cut me a break; it was going to be laundry day in Kyoto. Packing up all of our dirty laundry, we proceeded down to the lobby where our friendly doorman exp...

Strangely enough, we started today with breakfast at Subway. It seems so strange that I'm halfway across the world eating my usual Tuna Sub on Whole Wheat. And even here I had to ask for no cheese - why do people assume I want cheese on my tuna fish sandwich?? UGH. After breakfast, we headed across the street to the Bank of Tokyo Mitsubishi. Dad stayed out for a smoke while I began asking for my draft to be cashed. By the time he came in, the bankers were frazzled trying to explain that they ...

Feeling lazy, we grabbed breakfast at the hotel buffet, rather than working our way back to Subway. We made it a quick one, as we had a day full of shopping and sightseeing ahead of us, beginning with the Ameyoko Market. As my guide book describes it, "One of the great bazaars in Asia, Ameyoko is a place where anything is available, almost always at a discount." The market is situated under the JR rail tracks; the booths literally shake with the passing of each train, and the vendors can be h...

05 Dec - Tokyo Kat jets off to Tokyo to meet up with Kris. She'll be teaching two belly dance workshops on Dec 08, then the pair head off to experience Khao Lak, Thailand for 8 days. Dec 06-07: Big, beautiful, sparkling clean, Tokyo and the surrounding suburbs have morphed into a combination of USA/UK/Australia. On every corner there's a GAP, McDonalds, Starbucks, Outback Steakhouse, Tony Romas. We stayed at the New Otani Hotel in Makuhari, about 1-hour outside of Tokyo, right on Tokyo Bay wi...

I arranged for us to stay at a very nice, but affordable, hotel in Tokyo for the first two days. That seems to have turned out to be a good move. Jack's been studying Japanese language, culture and manga for most of the five years since he first learned that we would be taking this trip. But this is his first significant international experience, aside from living in Austria for 9 months as a toddler, and the 2 years we lived in Texas (Texas joke - anyone who's lived there will get it). I'm f...