Friday, January 1, 2010

If It's Tuesday, It Must be London: Katie Reprises Her Yoko Ono Imitation

We received a call from the New Sanno Hotel Tuesday morning. The U.S. military hotel in Tokyo wondered if we wanted to take advantage of a last-minute cancellation. In the spirit of the season, I didn't put up much of a fight when the hotel representative insisted the four of us could not possibly squeeze into a room featuring a queen-size bed and fold-out couch. Sure, we'll take the room with twin beds also. I was also darn sure the cancelling guest had already paid for those rooms but I didn't bother trying to negotiate a discount. Why waste my breath? Spending Tuesday night in Tokyo would put us an hour closer to Narita Airport for Katie's Wednesday afternoon departure.

(Note to future visitors: Haneda Airport will open a fourth runway any day now and there is talk of re-opening that airport to international flights. You might want to consider Haneda Airport when booking your travel as that airport is half as far from Yokosuka as is Narita Airport.)

A couple of hours after confirming our reservations we were on a Tokyo-bound train and an hour after that we dumped most of Kate's earthly possessions in a hotel room and were off to Tokyo Tower, erected in 1958 when the Japanese television stations needed a new tower and opted to boost national self-esteem in the bargain.

It looks like the Eiffel Tower on purpose. For those who might be oblivious to the resemblance, there's a French crepe stand near the entrance to tweak the subconscious. That crepe stand was a lot more appealing to one of us than the prospect of ascending to the observation platform in a glass elevator. Apparently he was standing in line for his blueberry confection when I took this picture.

By the time I tracked down the tower mascot, no one was in a cooperative mood. Since I have yet to master PhotoShop, you're going to have to pretend that Japanese family is us. We have no idea what the mascot is intended to represent or why he/she/it is sporting a bandaid. (Okay, we have a few ideas but certainly none that bear repeating here.)

The three of us who were still speaking to each other at this point voted to start looking for a place to eat. The Akasaka neighborhood seemed like a good bet. Akasaka is within walking distance of Tokyo Tower but the Three Lazy Bums were having none of that and Marcella Marceau graciously bowed to their demand to travel by subway. 'Graciously bowed' in this instance means 'nodded coldly.'

"Wow, Mom, you wouldn't believe how much you look like Grandma right now!" Actually, I would.

Akasaka did indeed offer a plethora of dining options. We eventually narrowed our choices to Indian, Korean BBQ, and English pub fare. The teenager particularly liked the looks of the pizza pictured on the sign outside the English pub.

This is how we came to spend Kate's last night in Japan eating fish and chips, a meat pie, and a pepperoni pizza surrounded by a half dozen boisterous British expatriates and/or embassy employees all of whom sounded a lot like Hugh Grant and Ian McEwan. Alas, the resemblance was limited to the vocal chords.

It turns out there are three Hobgoblin pubs scattered around Tokyo. We'll happily investigate the others when you come to see us.

2 comments:

  1. Haneda Airport = 700.00 more dollars in cost and 9 more hours of travel time for me. I could catch a train from NRT. Happy Holidays

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  2. Eek! But you might have jumped the gun, sis. They are still hammering out the details of the "direct flight" option over on this side of the Pacific.

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