Spring Break Collection

Park Hyatt, Shinjuku.  This is the bar where the movie "Lost in Translation" was filmed.

You can see two baseball stadiums on the right hand side, one is the Tokyo Dome and the other is Jingu Stadium.  More on that later.

We found ourselves on the "back" side of this building, looking for this building, confused by the signs on the building which made it sound like it was something else entirely.  This sort of confusion was an every day occurrence, but this time we had professional help.  Natasha asked a delivery lady on a scooter where the building was.  The lady was super nice — she phoned her boss and asked for directions, then she asked some of the other locals where it was.  She simply would not give up.  5 minutes is way past my attention span for gaijin charades, so I wandered off while Natasha negotiated the farce.  Eventually Natasha escaped and the delivery lady zipped off.  We circumnavigated the imposing structure to see what was on the other side, and then we saw another sign that told us we had already arrived.

We came before 8pm, so there was no cover charge.  We had to order drinks, though, and that will set you back 15+ dollars even for a non-alcoholic beverage.  On the bright side, they had free munchies with wasabi peas and puffed rice.  As the sun set, the view got even better.  This was a relaxing way to spend an evening, resting our feet and looking out over the world.

All toilets in Japan are good.  Most have bidets, showers, seat warmers, and flush ferociously.  The toilets at this hotel were even better.  These had massage modes, joysticks to control spray aim, the mens toilets lifted the seat automatically, and an LCD screen provided system status.

If you are wealthy or crazy, you could also order dinner here.  I'll be saving that option for the next time I'm on business with a company credit card.

The streets of Shinjuku are famous for being shockingly busy with light.  You'll see these streets in the scenes from Lost in Translation.  It was very neat to walk about at night, but we were too tired to carry on and we didn't really explore the nightlife, and instead walked a couple blocks to get to our train and retire.