Andy in Tokyo

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.

View Mandarin Oriental, Tokyo in a larger map

ANA’s ‘Mohican’ jet returns

Japan’s second airline, All Nippon Airways (ANA), has decided to go back to the future by reintroducing this funky ‘Mohican’ livery, which was last seen in the skies twenty years ago:

Unfortunately only one plane – a Boeing 767 now operating between Tokyo and Kyushu – has been given the new (or should I say old) paint job. I think it looks fantastic, especially when compared with ANA’s current bland, identikit early-90s branding. Perhaps a concerted on-line campaign will encourage them to repaint more of their fleet.

More infomation: ANA’s offical press release

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:

Tokyo’s Rush-Hour Rudeness

It’s been a couple of years since my last Tokyo rush-hour post, but something happened recently that I have to moan about:

I was on a fairly busy train to work yesterday morning. As usual the seats were all taken so I stood towards the middle of the carriage. At one stop a woman boarded the train and stood next to me. Despite the fact that she was obviously heavily pregnant not a single person offered to give up their seat for her. It was only when a few people got off the train at Shinjuku that I was able to offer her the now-vacated seat in front of me, which she gladly accepted.

This kind of behaviour absolutely infuriates me. Surely any physically fit adult with a smidgeon of human decency would give up their seat for a pregnant woman?

Kuruma banare (車離れ): de-motorisation

While car companies are currently in a terrible financial situation, with sales having slumped in developed countries, most do see light at the end of the tunnel and anticipate a recovery. In Japan, however, the decline may be much harder to reverse.

In 2009 it is predicted that 4.86 million new cars will be sold in Japan, which would be the first time in 30 years that sales have fallen below five million. What is even more worrying for Japanese car makers is that young people – men especially – are far less interested in cars than they used to be.

While owning a car used to be a status symbol, Japanese youngsters these days are more likely to be spending their money on the latest mobile phones, MP3 players and other electronic gadgetry than on their first car. The convenience of public transport in urban areas also leaves childless 20- and 30-somethings with little reason to buy one.

So how can car manufacturers make their products more appealing to young Japanese? Perhaps one way forward is for companies to generate more revenue from car-related services than from car sales. A car-sharing scheme could prove popular, especially when coupled with an online “car booking” service that can be accessed from mobile phones. All for a monthly fee, of course.

What do you think will happen to the Japanese car industry?

Related: “Japan auto sales plunge as young lose interest” – The Detroit News

The Peninsula Tokyo

For the missus’ birthday we decided to try out The Peninsula Hotel in Yurakucho. We opted for a Park View room, which is a little bit bigger than the standard room:

Nice big bed and sofa:

Very spacious for a hotel in Tokyo:

Big TV. Crucially important for watching J Sports:

The TV had one of those “interactive” menus, which was absolutely rubbish. It was glacially slow and totally unresponsive at times:

Nice selection of magazines under the coffee table. Japanese Esquire is surprisingly good:

Lots of input options for the TV, including memory card slots:

The hotel room comes with a mobile phone (DoCoMo), which means you won’t miss any calls while you’re wandering about town. Very clever:

There’s also a fax machine/printer/copier hidden away:

And an espresso maker:

The bathroom is a very solid-looking affair. Note the eye-catching rock “feature” above the bath:

Two sinks, just in case:

There’s a small LCD TV mounted on the wall. You can also push a “spa” button on the wall next to the bath to automatically dim the lights and turn on some relaxing (sort of) music:

The dressing room has a valet box:

Put whatever you need to be cleaned in the box, press the button and it will be dealt with for you. Your morning papers also mysteriously appear in here every morning:

For the ladies there’s a nail dryer built in to the dressing table:

The view is quite impressive. Our room was on the 20th floor:

The view from the left-hand window:

The big green building in the centre is Shiodome City Center (I think!):

Shinbashi is a bit further down:

The view from the right-hand window. Beautiful clear blue skies in Tokyo in January. Lip-chappingly dry though:

And let’s not forget the free chocolates:

The Peninsula is very handily located. It’s just a short walk to the shops of Ginza and Marunouchi:

View The Peninsula Tokyo in a larger map

The end of humanity

You have to be as calm as a Hindu cow to survive some train journeys in Tokyo. Do you think you could put up with this kind of treatment on a daily basis without going mental?

Is Japan Expensive? Part 1: Travel

Is the UK more expensive than Japan these days? Over the next few posts I’ll be exploring just how much things cost in both countries. Let’s start with travel:

Travel by car:

First off, we’ll need to buy a car to get around in. I’ve chosen two examples here: the VW Golf R32, which is a beast of a machine; and a Honda Civic, which is your general pootling-about vehicle.

Japanese road tax varies from ¥10-50,000 (approx. £50-250) depending on engine size; in the UK road tax can be anything from £35 to £400. Our sample cars would probably fall into the higher and medium-range tax brackets, respectively:

Golf R32 (Same model in both countries – 3-door MT)

• UK price: £24,950
• JP price: £19,610 (¥4,114,286)

Honda Civic (Japan – 1.8G, 5-door MT; UK – Civic 1.4S, 3-door MT. Both were the cheapest possible models I could find)

• JP price: £9,231 (¥1,937,250)
• UK price: £13,410

So for a simple purchase, Japan wins on both counts. Of course, Japan’s motorways are tolled, whereas the UK is – with one or two exceptions – free, which is something to take into account when thinking about travelling long distances. And there’s the added cost of a parking space, which would probably cost somewhere in the region of ¥30,000 (approx. £150) per month around where I live (western Tokyo).

Fuel prices are easy to compare. I’ve chosen a representative suburb of London and Tokyo from which to work on: Southgate in North London and Kichijoji in Western Tokyo. Both are around the same distance from the political and financial centres of their respective cities:

Petrol (regular unleaded, per litre):

• UK price: £1.13
• JP price: £0.83 (¥164)

Blimey, that’s quite a huge difference!

Commuting:

First off, I should point out that most (95%+) Japanese companies pay for the cost of their employees’ commute to work, which is usually by train. This may happen with some companies in the UK, but is far less common.

For our sample journey, I’m again going to use Southgate (London) and Kichijoji (Tokyo) as our representative suburbs. I’ve picked Southgate to Westminster and Kichijoji to Ichigaya as our routes (the latter because that’s my route to work, and therefore have a pass handy!). Both take approximately the same length of time and cover the same distance, travelling from the outer suburbs to the centre of their respective cities. Let’s start with a monthly rail pass:

• UK price: £132.90 – Southgate to Westminster, Zones 1-4
• JP price £42.01 (¥8,890) – Kichijoji to Ichigaya

The big difference with both of these passes, apart from the huge gulf in price, is that with a pass in London you would be able to travel anywhere within Zones 1-4. With the Tokyo pass you would be able to travel anywhere between Kichijoji and Ichigaya for free, provided you use the same train line (in this case the JR Chuo-Sobu line). That’s good if you want to travel to, say, Shinjuku, but for the other “centres” of Tokyo you’d have to pay a little bit extra each time.

To make it a bit fairer, let’s compare the price of a one-way journey along the same routes:

• UK price: £2.50 – Southgate to Westminster
• JP price: £1.38 (¥290) – Kichijoji to Ichigaya

Tokyo still comes out on top, but the price difference isn’t quite as enormous.

Long-distance rail travel:

Japan is famous for their shinkansen (bullet trains), so I couldn’t write a post about travel without mentioning them at some point, could I? I’ve personally never had that much trouble with high-speed trains in the UK, but I’m sure there are millions who have, and who would be more than happy to recount their horror stories.

For high-speed trains, I’ve chosen London-Newcastle (270 miles) for the UK, and Tokyo-Osaka (343 miles) for Japan. Despite the extra 130 miles covered by our Japanese train it still manages to reach its destination more than 20 minutes ahead of its British counterpart (2hrs 36mins for Tokyo-Osaka and 2hrs 59mins for London-Newcastle).

Pricing is a bit different for both countries. In the UK it’s possible to get hugely discounted high-speed train tickets provided you book well in advance; in Japan shinkansen tickets are – in general – the same no matter how far in advance you book. To make it fair, I’ve compared the price for an open-single ticket for both (travel at any time of the day, on any train):

• UK price: £124.50 – London King’s Cross to Newcastle, standard open single ticket
• JP price: £66.07 (¥13,850) – Tokyo to Shin Osaka, reserved seat

The shinkansen looks much cheaper here, but bearing in mind the booking-in-advance rule in the UK, it really isn’t: I could get a return ticket from London to Newcastle for £66 provided I sorted it out a week or two in advance.

That’s all for this post. Look out for “Part 2: Household Goods”, where I’ll be comparing the price of TVs, sofas and other assorted gubbins!

(Prices based on 11th June 2008 exchange rates: 1GBP = 209.55JPY)

Singapore and Australia

In the past couple of months I’ve had to do some foreign travel for work. On paper this sounds like a good deal: free flights, free accommodation and a daily allowance. Of course, the major problem with business travel is the fact that you have to actually do some work once you’ve reached your destination.

In March I went to Singapore to make a presentation and conduct “research” (I can say no more than that, because, err… the less I say about it the more mysterious it sounds). Unfortunately I didn’t finish work until 7pm most days, so there was little chance to take in the sights. I did manage to have a pint or seven the first night I arrived, which in hindsight was a very bad idea: I spent much of the next morning sneaking out of a meeting to spew-up in the bogs. Thankfully no one noticed, or if they did they did a very good job of pretending that nothing was awry.

So anyway, I liked Singapore. The food was very good, although I have been told to try the chilli crab next time I visit. I hope it’s boiled crab served with some kind of chilli sauce, and not a crustacean with a bad head cold. My hotel was opposite the world-famous Raffles hotel, and natually I had to go in for a Singapore Sling. Tradition dictates that you throw your peanut shells on the floor of the bar, which made the place look like a cow shed. To make matters worse, a fleet of ageing American cruise-ship tourists waddled in while I was there, and the very size of them only served to reinforce the cow shediness.

There was a brief lull in activity until a couple of weeks ago, when I went to Australia for more “research”. The schedule was a bit mental: two days in Melbourne, two days in Canberra, one day back in Melbourne and then one day in Sydney. I had forgotten that it was autumn in Australia, and it was a bit strange walking around in May and seeing the leaves falling off the trees, and it being -2 degrees in the mornings.

The wonderful thing about Australia was being able to understand what people were saying all of the time, being able to pick up a newspaper and know what’s going on, and simply being able to deal with everything in my own language. It was very easy to fall into conversation with complete strangers, which happens very rarely in Japan, well at least to me at any rate. I must exude an aura of unapproachability. I think it has something to do with my childhood – having to put on an “eff off!” face to dissuade the scallies from trying to nick my pocket money when I was hanging about Middlesbrough on Saturdays.

At any rate, Australia was good. I even managed to finish work early which gave time for a bit more of a wander around. This extra time was good in Melbourne, and would have been in Sydney if I didn’t have to wait at the airport for 2 hours for my suitcase to turn up, but sadly it was lost on Canberra.

With two days in Canberra, and my hotel being close to the centre, I decided to go for a wander to the parliament building. From my hotel room window it looked like a 20 minute walk at the most. However, after thirty minutes of walking in its general direction I had lost all sight of it, and hadn’t passed a single living soul. I decided to give up and head back after 40 minutes for fear that I might get beaten up by a gang of renegade kangaroos (there was a kangaroo cull on while I was there. Some of them had been going to the off-licence, buying 24-packs of Stella and beating up goths who where waiting for the bus home from sixth-form).

So, that’s all the travel news so far. I think I’ll be heading back to Australia at the end of the year, and Singapore again next year. In the meantime, here are some photos for your perusal:

This is from a bar in Singapore. It pissed it down for the entire duration of my stay.

This is the view from the Singapore office (which, incidentally, is much better than the one I work in in Tokyo. Damn them!).

This is the view from my hotel room at night. Raffles is in the bottom-left corner.

Here’s my hotel room. No idea why they gave me a twin room. Still, good for dumping the old suitcase!

“Death for drug traffickers under Singapore law” – ooh err missus!

This is Melbourne. Lots of trams in the city centre. I was convinced that I would get ploughed by one at some point. Didn’t happen. No one seemed to pay for tickets, so I didn’t either – when in Rome…

Down by the river side in Melbourne. Found lots of good bars and restaurants down here. All the staff were either British, Irish or American. Mind you, in London all the bar staff are either Aussies or Kiwis.

Melbourne’s skyline, as seen from the office (which once again was much better than my office in Tokyo. It’s a conspiracy!).

This is somewhere in Victoria. Taken from the plane back to Melbourne from Canberra.

This is the view from my hotel room in Canberra. The spiky thing in the distance is the parliament building. Doesn’t look too far away, does it?

Close up of the parliament building. Apparently most of it is underground in case of war. Looks like a big hill with a kebab skewer on top if you ask me.

I somehow managed to land an executive suite at no extra cost in Canberra. It was about the same size as our flat in Tokyo – class!

The bed was enormous as well.

This is what I discovered when I went walking towards the parliament building in Canberra: absolutely nowt. The footpaths even disappeared after a while…

… I did find a solitary signpost. Shame it was to nowhere in particular

Business hotels

For the busy salaryman, business hotels are a home-away-from-home. I had to spend the night in Osaka on Tuesday night for work, which provided me with an opportunity to experience one first-hand:

‘Cosy’ bedroom:

‘Compact’ bathroom:

‘Stunning’ city views: