Snow-kyo
Well, I was convinced that the snow we had earlier this month would be the first – and last – for Tokyo this year, but I woke up this morning to find yet another covering of the white stuff:
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Mutant Strawberries
Bought some strawberries today. I think they may have been grown in Chernobyl:
Snow Way
Last night’s snow was more robust than I had expected. The roof of almost every house between my home and office was covered with it this morning. The road-bound stuff didn’t fare so well, though:
Word of warning: leather-soled shoes + snow = certain death.
No more snow is forecast for the rest of the week. Chances are we won’t be seeing any more in Tokyo for the rest of the year, which is a shame. I was looking forward to seeing ‘proper’ snow, especially considering England has been having its whitest winter since 1980.
Snow hits Tokyo
The first snow of the season has arrived here in Tokyo. Unfortunately it’s not cold enough for it to lay, which means an unpleasant trudge through slush to the train station tomorrow.
Mandarin Oriental, Tokyo
Continuing with our birthday tradition of spending a night in a fancy Tokyo hotel (see last year’s post on The Peninsula), this weekend my better half and myself stayed at the Mandarin Oriental in Nihonbashi.
Rooms are very spacious. Starting from 50m2:
The bed is a decent size:
As is the TV (a 42 incher). You can watch both Wowow and Star Channel movies in full HD, which is ace:
If it’s your birthday the hotel provides a free bowl of strawberries, which is nice. You can see the bathroom through the vertical blinds in the background. The bathroom mirror is on rails so you can move it out of the way when you want to see Tokyo from the bath:
The bathroom itself has a solid granite sink:
All the knobs and handles are polished to within an inch of their lives:
The bath is a solid granite affair. Easily big enough for two:
I filled our bath with hydrochloric acid. It cleans the pores, deep down (to the bone):
The toilet is, as you would expect, a high-tech Toto super-loo:
Features abound:
The shower has a selection of free stuff by Aromatherapy Associates. My wife assures me that their stuff is the business:
Back in the bedroom, we have a yoga mat and brolly in the cupboard:
More views of the room. Wifey can be seen sat on the sofa, exasperated by my photo-taking antics:
Rooms come fully-loaded with booze:
Snacks:
More booze:
And, erm, stationery:
Oh and you also get a pair of yukata’s and fan for poncing about the room in, feeling all imbued with the spirit of the samurai and all that guff:
We thought “Bollocks to it!” and ordered a room-service breakfast:
Green tea pancakes with maple syrup. Very nice:
And an omelette with assorted fried bits and bobs:
Finally, the view. Our room was on the 30th floor, which is the lowest. Bizarrely, the front desk is on the 38th floor, which means to get outside you have to take one lift from the 30th to the 38th floor, then get in another lift that takes you to the ground floor. Our room was facing east, towards Asakusa. There were a few cranes in the way as they’re building something next door:
Construction of Tokyo Sky Tree is well and truly in progress. The finished article will be 634 metres tall, falling some way behind the awesome Burj Khalifa:
The sumo joint:
Looking left:
Looking right:
The same view at night reveals a fancy ferris wheel:
And some very bright crane lights:
Oh and one more thing before we wrap this little photo tour up. The customer toilets on the 38th floor have a “pee on the plebs” feature which I had to take a video of (I don’t normally take videos in toilets, you understand, but this one was special):
All in all, the Mandarin Oriental Tokyo is a top-class hotel with a fantastic view, and I highly recommend it.
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Merry Kurisumasu!
Best wishes to everyone. Have a great day and get stuck into the important business of opening those prezzies!
Christmas Lights in Marunouchi
As with every December, the Christmas lights are up in Marunouchi. Looks a lot quieter in this photo than it really was:
Shibuya’s Hachiko Crossing comes to London
Well, that might be overstating it somewhat, but I was interested to see that design agency Atkins has revamped Oxford Circus with a very Shibuya-esque spin. Now all that’s needed is people. Lots of people:
Some neon lighting wouldn’t go amiss, either:
Tokyo: The Imperial Palace and Marunouchi
Here, ladies and gentlemen, we have Tokyo’s Imperial Palace complex. In the late 1980s some (very optimistic) calculations made this 3.5km² patch of land worth more than all the property in California:
It is said that from this castle’s windows the emperor likes to shout obscenities at passers-by. It is also believed that he is fond of throwing milk bottles at geese:
People walking towards Marunouchi from Yurakucho. The woman in the bottom right corner seems to have spotted me. She must have hawk-like eyesight:
Marunouchi by day. The elliptical structure in the centre-right is the Tokyo International Forum:
The same view by night:
The Joys of Japan Post
Japan could teach the world a thing or two about logistics. Apart from being the country’s largest employer Japan Post is also pretty good at getting things delivered. If you happen to be out when the postman arrives with a parcel you’ll find a little redelivery slip in your letterbox:
Although the automated telephone system is only available in Japanese using it is a breeze. Notice that different parts of the slip are initialled in katakana. All you need to do is follow the steps in order (a, i, u, e, o).
You can choose to have your parcel redelivered in the morning, afternoon, evening or night. The service operates seven days a week as well, which is absolutely bloomin’ marvellous.
Swine flu hits Tokyo
Japanese organisations, especially big ones, seem to relish the task of preparing for emergencies. The recent swine flu outbreak is being used by the media here as a way of boring people to death by repeating the same information over and over (and over) again. Wednesday’s nine o’clock news on NHK devoted more than thirty minutes to the subject, leaving only a few seconds for the baseball results and something about a “global recession”, whatever that is.
To combat the evil menace that is H1N1 flu my company has decided that we need to be told how to wash our hands:
We’ve also been told to wear surgical masks in the office and on the trains. God only knows what kind of instructional material they’ll provide if there’s a severe outbreak of dysentery.
