Keio Plaza Hotel – Now that’s what I’m talking about

 

 

Such a fancy pants hotel...

Random Observation/Comment #83: There are some problems you can just throw money at to make better.  Today was just one of those problems.

 

Due to the extremely shitty day Chris and I were having, we decided to go to the nearest JR station and ask for hotel bookings.  The JR Company and local hotels have a very symbiotic relationship.  Major JR stations have a travel agency that connects with major hotels near their stations.  There’s no extra charge for the room and they setup everything for you.  These employees all speak English and they’re extremely patient with all of the customers.  She called every hotel we showed interest in to look for vacancies and get the best rates for us.  We must have sat there for 20 minutes browsing brochures for the most outrageous 5 star hotel in the area.  After looking through a lot of really pretty pictures and websites, we decided that the Keio Plaza Hotel would be our pad for the night.

::whistle:: Damn, this place was gorgeous.  The hotel is located in Shinjuku, near all of the sky scrapers and was priced at $250 for two people.  Normal hotels and business hotels cost about $170 for two people so we decided to spend the extra $40 per person to get a much nicer room – it was well worth the price.  The accommodation included breakfast fit for kings, which to me meant all the ripe cherry tomatoes I could fit in my stomach in the morning.  They extended our checkout time to 11 AM, which made me so happy to get that extra hour of sleep for the long Mt. Fuji walk ahead.

The room was huge and it had a postcard-perfect view out the large windows from the 34^th floor.  The beds had a million (5) pillows and soft sheets for me to build my little forts.  The LCD television broadcasted the Olympic Games in crystal clear images, and the Toto toilet sprayed warm water up my ass – It’s what a King deserves.  The only thing missing is the hoards of swine, ready to perform any task at my will.  And the feminists go wild.  Hey, stop stereotyping me with the rest of my gender.  I thought that’s what you gals were trying to fight against?

I was really tempted to take a bubble bath, but a warm shower would have to do.  Walking out of the shower, I tried on the styles of night outfits.  The white robe was this American style of “drying myself with my clothes.”  The yukata was made of much thinner material and made me look like a ninja.  And lastly, the other Asian-originated garment had these weird buttons that was probably made for a girl.  I looked like a kung fu master.  I got the hint that there was a problem when my shoulders and back stretched the fabric tighter than expected.  Usually, my Japan-size is an extra large, but this looked like I was wearing toddler clothes.

The night was exactly what I needed to make up for the lack of excitement in the day.  It would have been complete if I was fanned with a giant banana leaf by Amazon girls wearing skimpy lion skin thongs.  They also have to be feeding me cherry tomatoes and entertaining me with mud wrestling fights.  I think I have just described the stereotypical male fantasy.

~See Lemons Feel Much Better

 

damn, it feels good to be a gangsta

 

 

Harajuku and Shinjuku for an afternoon

crazy posers in harajuku

Random Observation/Comment #58: People in Harajuku are just desperate for attention; I think they’re doing it in the most disturbing way possible – these freaks that don’t care if they’re shmoiling as long as they look badass (and they do look pretty badass).

After Akihabara, RJ and I went to meet up with the rest of group for dinner. Finding someone in Harajuku is a lost cause because the streets are too busy and crowded. Everyone walking around fit into two categories: gothic freaks wearing all black/white with chains, and tourists taking pictures of gothic freaks wearing all black/white with chains. We fit into the latter category. The exit of the train station facing the street with the large crowd of people looked like a large distraction. It’s like people only walk that way because there are so many people walking that way, which makes more people walk in this vicious cycle of confused tourists looking for more rockabilly picture moments.

Instead of getting uncomfortably squashed around following the very tempting shopping path, I suggest walking towards the bridge near the performers and posers. They sit around talking about how cool they are or some shyt like that. I think they try to look as embarrassed as possible, as if this were not a regular occurrence and they’re being misunderstood in their actions. If this incorrect, please enlighten me: Why do you dress up like this and sit in a group, smiling at some pictures and hovering around in your little circles? I mean, are you talking about politics or some foreign affairs? Or would an intense conversation just ruin your image of this badass rocker or cute little maid? Please excuse my criticism and continue following this routine so others can benefit from your oh-so self-sacrificing love of the poser image. Rock on.

The zoo was entertaining for a few pictures, but we eventually moved on in the hot weather to the shrine and toris around the park. It was so hot and muggy that we had to stop half-way through the walk and grab a beer at the restaurant. “Nama o futatsu,” or “two draft beers,” became a very common saying this trip. The walk to Shinjuku was underestimated, but I did wind up buying orange juice and drinking it from a straw out of a carton. I felt pretty ghetto, but I just said, “Word life, New York status” and everything was alright. They recognized.

Shinjuku station is ridiculously big. Think of the Macy’s in the city having a train station in the middle of it. You have a 5 minute walk from one side to another and the top floor is covered in girls’ clothes. Meeting a group is quite difficult when there are multiple exits, but we managed to locate the meeting destination. To get a better view of the only JR exit on this side, we went to the top of the overpass and looked over the lockers to the sea of people below. Although we were looking for a Japanese girl leading some Australian girls, we kept getting distracted by the cute groups of Japanese girls that never stopped exiting the gates.

Dinner was not quite dinner because we went to a bar-type place on the roof of the station/mall. We bought pitchers of beer and ate beer snacks (fries, fried chicken, and bite-sized stuff). The novice drinker had quite a stomach. He impressively drank a pitcher and a half in under an hour and didn’t upchuck. Since the drinking started at 8PM, he was already out by 9. This is the problem with new drinkers – they don’t understand that the purpose of drinking is not to get drunk. The purpose of drinking is to more enjoyably speak with friends and joke around. If you forget the night because you passed out in front of a Walmart, you drank too much. There were worse things that could have been done to RJ to teach him this lesson, but I think a few pictures should be okay. I think he’ll just need more experience in the matter.

Since I drank the same amount as him, but in the span of two hours, I had a nice buzz (but the room wasn’t spinning) when visiting one of the towers for night sight-seeing. The view was a little difficult to capture with the camera because of the glare from the well-lit tourist area behind, but you would remember it if you were there (and not really drunk). Thank you, Yuka, for taking care of him. Fancy pants J.

~See Lemons Drink Sociably

That's what happens when you don't pace yourself