Saturday in Tokyo

Posted on 2014/02/04 14:14:19 (February 2014).

[Saturday 1st February 2014]
We landed at Narita just before 9 in the morning, got the Narita Express to Tokyo, and were able to get through the airport in about an hour. We took the Narita Express from there to Shinagawa, where auntie Yuka met us at the station, and came with us to Roppongi. As on previous trips I'd be working in Tokyo for the first week, and had chosen again to stay at the Grand Hyatt, because it's just so convenient for my office.

We managed to checkin at midday (in spite of the best efforts of a porter who rather unhelpfully ambuhsed us on our way in, wrestled our luggage off us, and try to persuade us to come back at 3pm). The porter was soon forgotten when we got to the room, and there were lots of little nice touches waiting for us. Without me having to say anything this time they'd given me a room on the 6th floor (the most convenient for getting to my office, I don't even need to go to the ground floor from there), and had also remembered some of my requests from previous visits - there was an iron waiting in the cupboard and some interdental brushes in the bathroom. Oh and they left out some delicious strawberries for us, and couple of other little boxes with sweet things in too.

We went for lunch at nearby stalwart Chien Fu, the incredibly convenient vegetarian Chinese restaurant, just a few minutes from the hotel. Their lunch set is very good value - I had a sort of mock beef thing in a peppery sauce, which was quite tasty.

After that I had my now traditional jetlag afternoon nap for a couple of hours, whilst the girls went out and did a bit of shopping (Chie managed to borrow a buggy apparently, in which Erika dozed quite contentedly).

In the evening our original plans had fallen through, so instead I got Andy to come over to our hotel, and we went and picked up some beers and pizzas (from a little pizzeria called Savoy which only has two items on the menu - margherita or marinara - both very good). We took them back to our room to eat. I thought that be a bit easier than eating in a restaurant, as Erika was probably feeling quite tired and disoriented by this point, which could lead to a bit of a scene.

After giving Erika a bath and reading her a bedtime story, I headed out for a couple more drinks with Andy at the old stalwart the Hobgoblin.

Post a comment