Day 54 - Wednesday 6 June - Chitose to Tokyo

Closed the blinds, had aircon that worked, a room that faced northwest, and sheets as well as a blanket. You'd think I'd have had the perfect sleep conditions. But alas, it still took me ages to get to sleep and felt like I was awake for ages early in the night. Sigh. But at least slept til after 7am which was good.

Had breakfast downstairs. There were no checks at all and the place is open to the airport terminal, so really anyone could just come in and eat breakfast there - bizarre!

Checked out and wandered across to the checkin gate for the planes. Turns out the JAL ticket I'd bought was already the boarding pass. Checked our bags, but didn't need to print anything else. Weird! Some confusion as we were trying to figure out how to get boarding passes, when in fact we already had them!

Flight was pretty dull. Clouds just after takeoff til just before landing, except for a small gap in the clouds looking down to the coastline at Sendai where the tsunami last year hit the worst. Sad..

Runway 05 at Haneda Airport

Haneda Airport

Landed, got our bags, then had to face dragging my broken bag all the way across Tokyo :( The sweetie was the bestest sweetie ever and carried it and/or rolled it on top of his bag. I carried his carry-on bag.

So a monorail ride to Hamamatsucho then it was either a Yamonote line train or a Oedo subway to get to Shinjuku. We took the Yamonote line simply because we were super familiar with it.

View across Tama River

View across the Ebitori River

Then the long painful walk to the hotel :(

View down Koshu-Kaido Avenue to the Park Hyatt. Doesn't look that far until you consider I had a broken suitcase

We found the building ok, but walked around it trying to find the actual hotel :( Was quite blah by the time we found it upstairs. But you pay a premium for this hotel for a reason - there's pretty great service. They saw us coming and ran to grab our bags and help us check in, so that was nice. The sweetie thought we should get an upgrade to a corner room. Well we've already spent a fortune on this place, so why not heh.

Park Hyatt Hotel

Got to our room and it's super awesome :) Well the view is super awesome. And there's aircon that seems to work and a huge bed and a funky bathroom area. Hung out for a little while but decided to go out and find some food (it was mid-late afternoon but we still hadn't had lunch).

Our room at the Park Hyatt Hotel

Huge bed in our room at the Park Hyatt Hotel

Walk-in wardrobe in our room at the Park Hyatt Hotel

Bathroom in our room at the Park Hyatt Hotel

View from our room at the Park Hyatt Hotel panorama

View from our room at the Park Hyatt Hotel panorama (stitched)

NTT Docomo Yoyogi Building

View towards Tokyo Sky Tree

View southeast from our room

View towards Tokyo Tower

Stu relaxing in our room

Minibar

Wandered towards Shinjuku and ended up in the "geek" area with Yodobashi Camera and other such stores around. Decided to have dinner at a little place there - where you have to decide what you want before you go in, pay on the vending machine, and take the tickets inside for your food. And it turned out to be a super tasty chicken dish that I really really enjoyed. Who needs Michelin stars when you can find great food for under $10!

Tokyo Metropolitan Government building from outside the Park Hyatt

Buildings in Shinjuku

Yodobashi Camera

Vending machine to choose your meal

Tokyo Metropolitan Government building

Stopped in at a Family Mart for some supplies, then came back to the hotel and enjoyed the view while using the internet :)

View east from our room at sunset

Tokyo buildings at sunset

View from my work desk

View east from our room at dusk

View from our room at dusk

View from our room by night panorama (stitched)

Tokyo Sky Tree by night

View from our room by night

View east from our room by night

Moon over Tokyo

View along Koshu-Kaido Avenue by night

So after a drinks interlude, we went up to the New York Bar, a-la Lost in Translation. Had a couple of drinks and listened to the jazz band with front row seats.. a very pleasant evening :)