Category: 2004-02: HKG and NRT

Bowling is an international sport.

Though I’d question the word of “sport” since people who sit at a table shoving cards and chips at each other is also considered a “sport”.

In HKG, you can go to an old airport and bowl in the terminal.

In Tokyo, all you need to do is look for one of these. Or it could just be a piece of moderne retro design…

Usually they’re out front like this one but sometimes they’re huge on the rooftops making a very weird statement on the skyline.

When I’m in HK, I usually find some time to go here to have a smoke. This place is above the main Shanghai Tang store in Central in the Pedder Building.

Now since I’m here to smoke, I usually go downstairs to shop. The clothes are nice and the home decor stuff is nice. It’s nice and nice & expensive! So I don’t buy but I do shop. I did pick up a CD of old Mandopop songs remixed, much like the recent Verve Remixed CDs called Shanghai Divas in Residence.

Except this was only 6 songs plus the remixes so I guess that’s 12 songs. Still kinda short but it’s a nice CD. I found myself listening to this a LOT on the Tokyo subway after I ripped the CD to my iPod. The remixes are about as long as the ride from Sendagi to Hibiya. It’s a nice groove and being on the train, it just fit.

Go here and click “next” at the bottom right corner of the page. You’ll see the CD on the next page.

On my last trip here (November 2003), I stayed at the New Koyo in Taito-Ku. It’s a bit out of the way, then nearest JR station being Minami-Senju. That’s several stops outside the Yamanote but you can’t beat the price.

This trip, I decided to stay somewhere different, albeit a tad pricer. The Annex Katsutaro is in Yanaka, a little bit closer than the New Koyo is. The nearest subway stop is Sendagi on the Chiyoda Line. It’s a one block walk (as opposed to the 6 block death march from Minami-Senju to the New Koyo). If you’re on JR or jumping off the Skyliner, you get off the train at Nippori Station and walk for about 10 minutes.

There’s a big pedestrianized street after you walk past the Yanaka Cemetary with all kinds of markets and shops. That’s called the Yanaka Ginza.



Walk to the end and make a left. Walk another block and you’ll see the Annex.

It’s new and it’s modern and it has three times the space that a room at the New Koyo has. And it has free internet via CAT 5 jacks in the walls. Wah!

The room was roomy, clean an it had a microfridge. And its own bathroom. Next time me and the fellas come to Japan, we stay here. No more friggin’ business hotels for me!

Best of all, if you dun bring yr Powerbook w/you, there’s FREE internet in the hall, a pee cee and a slot loading iMac. An iMac! Cool!

Thumbs up, and this is why I stayed here as opposed to the New Koyo this time, April. =P

Today was my last day in Tokyo. Blah. The plane leaves for San Francisco at 1945 which means I go BACK in time and arrive at 1100 today.

That date line thingie can be a real pain in da butt…

I had some time today before I had to leave for Narita on the Skyliner. Since it leaves at 1445 and it takes about an hour to get to Narita, I had the morning to putter about. Now what is the Skyliner? Well…

There are several ways to get to Tokyo from Narita. Most people take the JR N’ex, the Narita Express. It takes about an hour to get to Tokyo Station and another 15 minutes or so to go to Shinjuku and another 30 to get to Yokohama (at Tokyo Station, the train splits in two). It’s in the neighborhood of 3000 yen (yes, that’s about US$26 or so) EACH WAY! It’s not worth it unless you have a JR Pass (in which case, all JR lines are free) or if someone else is paying.

There are also private railways here, usually ran by department stores (go figure!) such as the Tokyu Lines or the Hankyu Lines in Kyoto. Keisei Electric Railways runs the Skyliner that runs from Narita to Nippori, terminating at Ueno. The trains are older and look a tad funky, but it’s only 1900 yen each way (and if you hunt around, you can get discounted tix).

I had a chance to visit Roppongi Hills, a very upscale redevelopment in Roppongi. It’s an attempt to bring some grownupness (respectibility) to the area. It’s pretty nice. I visited the Mori Institute for the Future, a urban planning exhibit that compares New York, Shanghai and Tokyo with some neat 1/1000 scale city models and a bunch of multimedia shows. And naturally, no cameras allowed.

Sorry bout that.

Gotta boogie, the train will leave soon…

Besides visiting questionable icons of bubble-era architecture (see below), today was an eating day.

I had lunch with Yumi which was good. She’s off skiing tomorrow. Fun!

Lunchtime is the same over there as it is over here. Short. Only an hour. Bummer.

I had a late supper with Takeshi, a friend I met when he was in San Francisco for a few months rooming with Cesar after graduating college. He works too hard. But he did have the time to hang out after work. We watched the football game between Japan and Oman (Japan won 1-0 with a last minute goal) at the Jazz Cafe London and had some drinks and smokes.

Then dinner with race queens! Well, the food was pretty good actually, but the service was fanstastically beautiful! Couldn’t take pix inside tho, so you’ll just have to be happy with the link.

If you take the Ginza line from end to end, you’ll begin in Shibuya (yum yum!) and end in Asakusa. Not Akasaka, which I’ve had a horrible habit of confusing the two.

You can tell you’re in Asakusa because:

#1: There’s a river. Neat.

#2: The oldest western style tavern (since 1891) is here.

#3: You can see the Phillipe Starck designed “golden turd” when you come up from the subway and look towards the bridge.

Actually it’s called the Asahi Dry Golden Beer Hall or something like that. There’s a couple of restaurants inside but nothing like the Yebisu Beer Museum that I went to on my first visit here.

Well, this trip was for doing things that I didn’t do before.

After all, Tokyo is the second biggest city in the world and HK is HK…that’s all that needs to be said about my destinations. Lots of things to do and see on top of the things I usually do and see.

But old fun habits die hard. Like staying out until the last train. And busting butt to catch it.

Once again, I’m on the last Yamanote to Nippori via Ueno.

A western ward of Tokyo divided by a train station. West is highrises, the Tokyo Metropolitan City Hall and that Park Hyatt where Lost in Translation took place.

East is shopping, Kabukicho and a general mess which means it’s the fun area.

There’s an observation deck at the top of the tower (like most big buildings in Tokyo do) and I was able to see the New City Hotel where I stayed in with some friends on my first visit here.

Not that impressive. It is a business hotel, meaning very basic and very old, from the 1960’s.

You really get an idea about how big it is here and just how expansive the city sprawl is.

That’s only looking west now! Looking east, you can see Tokyo Dome AKA the Big Egg where the Giants play.

I’m what’s considered an internet traveler.

I get a guidebook about a place I’d like to visit and devour it.

Then I research places to stay on the internet and usually make my decisions based on that.

Generally they’ve been hits as opposed to misses. Like the place I’m staying at for this trip. They even have broadband in the rooms for free (bring your CAT5 cable!).

The flight from HK was a bear. Well, actually not. Getting up early to get to the airport, that was a bear. Thankfully, in front of my HK digs, there’s a taxi stand.

This place is another “hit”. It’s smack in the middle of Causeway Bay, a short block from the MTR, exit E and another short block from a Wellcome, because every traveler needs a 24 hour grocery store.

Then I was upgraded gratis to Business Class. For free. Nice.

The flight was about 3.5 hours. Like flying to ORD from home. But then once you land at NRT, you have to endure a 1 hour long train ride into town and then you have to try to find your hotel. Which brings me to the topic of this rant.

The maps on these Japanese hotel sites (I ran into this last time when I stayed at this place) are NOT to scale. They’re great at noting landmarks where you turn left or turn right. But the distance between these landmarks, at least on the map, is the problem. It’s usually longer than it looks like on the map!

Gotta go stretch my legs, this was a long day.