Lilla Travels

The Royal Park Hotel in the Nihonbashi district caters to a lot of non-Japanese clients. It’s walking distance to the office. Everyone speaks some level of English, and there are Japanese-to-English translations listed everywhere.

I like to immerse myself in the culture when I travel, so I have purposely avoided their $50 Western-style brunch on Sunday mornings, and their offers for tours that look very touristy. But after a long work day, and conference calls with the U.S. scheduled for the evening hours, my coworker and I decided to eat in the hotel restaurant on the 25th floor.

A beautiful view of the city and it doesn’t do the scale of Tokyo justice. For about $50 we had enough food to qualify as a U.S. appetizer. We each had a half of a scallop, a half of a
prawn, two slices of pumpkin and one slice of beef. All of it seared on the griddle. It was yummy, but glad I had some snacks to munch on back in the hotel room!

The hotel concierge is only available between 8 AM and 6 PM which doesn’t mesh well with my work schedule. So the assistant manager is around at night and has been available to exchange money for me, help with the subway system and most most recent request: baseball tickets.

I recently requested tickets to see the Yomiuri Giants play the Saitama Seibu Lions at the Tokyo Dome on Friday night. (Note: Dice-K Matsusaka played for the Lions.) I had researched the arena and knew the Giants were going to be at home, knew what time the doors opened, when the game started, except I couldn’t find a way to purchase the tickets online.

After 5 minutes with my assistant manager pal, clicking at things on the computer screen and humming in a puzzled sound “Hmmmmm” he tells me that the game is sold out. More clicking and staring at the screen (Japanese are very comfortable with long periods of silence), and a few minutes later and more “hmmmm” sounds, he tells me there are tickets, but only where the opposing team sits. He said it in a tone scoffing at the  idea that I would want to attend the game if it meant sitting with the others. Does he not understand that being from the U.S., I do not have an allegiance towards one team or another? I requested that when the box office opens, please purchase the cheapest ticket possible for me and charge it to my room. Turns out, the tickets he purchased for me were from the convenience store across the street!

The same hotel manager has helped me exchange money. When he saw me today to give me the baseball tickets, he also handed me an envelope with some Tokyo coin currency in it. Turns out, I exchanged for Yen before the market opened (4:30 AM pre-visit to fish market), and when the market opened the exchange rate changed meaning the hotel owed me more money. It was about a dollar or two in coins. I just cannot imagine any bank worker in the U.S. being that honest. I would never have known the difference!

Finally I had the opportunity to dine at the place down the street that is either closed or full. And now I know why: 8 seats in the joint, a sushi chef, and a woman serving drinks. A nondescript entrance and I have no idea what the name of the place is.

I don’t know half of what I ate, but it was awesome. My colleague and I left it up to the chef so we had no idea what the total bill was going to be or how long we’d be sitting there for. Turns out 8400 yen for dinner plus three beers for the two of us — $110 — not bad at all!

The meal was all nigiri, gunkan and one cooked fish at the end. There was definitely an ebi nigiri sushi, sea urchin (uni), and I think the “chewy” white fish that I’ve now had twice is turbot (makogarei.) [UPDATE: a Japanese colleague told me the white fish was squid.] The meal was excellent.

Of course, the dinner ended with the chef asking where we were from, and his response to me being from Boston “Baseball!” “Matsusaka!”

An assortment of photos from walking around Tokyo: a $400 bouquet of roses, a shopkeeper refilling drinks at a beverage vending machines (beverage vending machines are EVERYWHERE in Tokyo), last night’s dinner, a no-smoking sign on the sidewalk, and bike storage.

Breakfast at the train station near the hotel was a cup of American coffee and a cream filled sweet donut thing…yum.

Lunch at a thai place near the office FILLED with chatchkes…I was too in shock to take a picture. A 1000 yen bowl of yummy noodle soup that was so hot my lips were still on fire 45 minutes later. And dinner at a chain – Sushizanmai — which was so good. One of my hosts kept ordering food and beer and the meal cost 6000 yen ($76.) One item – i think it was quail eggs pressed together – resulted in a solid/crunchy type of sushi that I didn’t enjoy eating. I was OK with the baby shrimp that tasted like popcorn, the lightly battered tempura and the rest of the meal.

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I’m told that the office has 10K people working in it….20+ floors and its eerily quiet. The vending machine offers free hot and cold green tea, and there is an American coffee shop on the lobby level of the building. The women’s bathroom on our floor has clear drawers that are labeled with names of the employees in that wing so they can store toiletries in the office versus carrying a purse of make-up and other items to and from the office on the subway each day. The toilet also makes flushing sounds while you are in the stall so you have as much privacy as possible to conduct your business.

In Tokyo, they’ve thought of everything. It’s so clean. There is no trash on the ground, but no trash barrels either. In the restaurant, there are wire baskets under our chairs to place a purse or laptop bag so it doesn’t touch the floor. Outside the restaurant, there is an umbrella bag dispenser so you can put your umbrella in and when you remove it it has a plastic wrapping around it so the wet umbrella doesnt drip in the restaurant. I noticed umbrella racks — 50+ upright cubbies — in the lobby as well for umbrellas. No one would dream of stealing someone else’s umbrella so it’s fine to leave it there until you need it again.