This past Saturday, Tanya and I went to visit Luray Caverns. Ever since I’ve been in DC, I’ve wanted to visit the Caverns, but just hadn’t made it out there. Definitely glad we did, as it was a pretty cool experience.
Luray Caverns is the largest underground cave on the east coast — with the typical rock formations growing from the ceiling and floor. Enough words — go watch the video!
The Meiji Shrine is right next to the Harajuku station in Tokyo Japan. The Meiji Shrine is quite an escape from the hustle and bustle of the city, and has over 100,000 trees on the shrine grounds.
On my last trip to Japan I stayed at the Hotel New Yokosuka, in Yokosuka Japan. The Hotel New Yokosuka is conveniently located just one block away from the main gate of Yokosuka Naval Base.
While this hotel caters mostly to American’s on business in Yokosuka, it still retains a very distinctive Japanese flair. Upon check-in, I was asked for your passport, but not a credit card. No payment is rendered until check-out. During check-in the staff informs me of my selected room rate, and how it compared to the current US Per Diem rate based on the current Yen exchange rate. I was then informed that my room included free “Breakfast, ADSL Internet, Drink Tickets, and Pay TV.” I was given the option of daily maid service in my room, or weekly maid service but daily laundry service. I took the daily laundry service as clean clothes are pretty nice, and I’m okay making my own bed. They do still come in to the room to bring new towels for the bathroom, they just don’t change the sheets.
My room on this stay was on the 6th floor of the “West Wing” of the hotel — a new building that is connected to the main building. The rooms in the West Wing are much bigger than the standard rooms, and include a little Kitchenette. Having stayed in the very small rooms in the main hotel, I’d definitely reccomend one of the West Wing rooms.
The room included a queen size bed, a flat screen television, two desks, and a balcony. The bathroom is a very typical tiny Japanese bathroom, with a heated/bidet toilet seat, and with an unusual feature of a television that you can watch from the bathtub. There was also a kitchenette with a mini-fridge, sink, dishwasher, stove, and microwave. I found the room to be very quiet — which is a plus for me since I’m a pretty light sleeper. The rooms in the main part of the hotel are not very quiet due to their small size, and proximity to each other.
Although you’d think Japan is pretty modern, many hotels in Japan still use actual metal keys, and this hotel is no exception. The key also has a big plastic thing attached to it that you insert in to a slot when you enter the room to turn the power on. The key needs to be returned to the front desk when you leave the hotel, and picked up when you come back to the hotel. They ensure you return the key, because breakfast coupons are tied to picking up your key in the evening.
The hotel provides breakfast every morning in the downstairs bar/restaurant. The breakfast is this bizarre combination of Japanese and American breakfasts… something in between. They serve eggs, cooked to order, cereal, toast, bacon that is waaaaay undercooked, miso soup, fried fish, and steamed rice. Fairly decent overall.
Every evening the hotel bar is open for the drink tickets to be redeemed. You can redeem the drink tickets for alcoholic, or non-alcoholic beverages. So if you’re a soda drinker like me, you can indeed get a coke 
. There is a pretty good American bar scene at the hotel every night with many of the Americans working on the base go to unwind. There’s also a 7-11 right cross the street in case you need a quick snack, or beverage the hotel doesn’t provide.
As far as transportation to the hotel goes — there are two main ways to get to Yokosuka by train, the JR Line, and the Keikyu Line. The hotel is located about a mile from the JR Yokosuka station, about a half mile from the Shiori Station on the Keikyu Line, and 3/4 of a mile from the Yokosuka Chuo station also on Keikyu line. My preference is to take the Keikyu line, as it is much faster than the JR. You can pick up the Keikyu line in Tokyo at Shinagawa, or at the main Yokohama station. From Yokohama it’s about 30 minutes if you take the express Keikyu to Yokosuka Chuo.
Yokosuka is a Navy town in Japan about 45 miles south of Tokyo. Yokosuka is home to both Japanese and US Navy bases. But I think Yoskosuka is most famous for “The Honch” — or the pedestrian street full of bars .
The Tsukiji Fish Market in Tokyo Japan is the world’s largest wholesale fish market. The video takes you on a whirlwind tour of the Marine Products section, where the fish is sold. Also included is a final shot of the restaurant section at Tsukiji.
In the Daiba mall on Odaiba is a section known as “Little Hong Kong”. Two floors of the mall have been decked out to resemble 1960′s Hong Kong. Pretty neat.
The Odaiba neighborhood in Tokyo is a series of man-made islands in Tokyo Bay. As one of the more recently developed areas, Odaiba is home to some of the more modern buildings in Tokyo, including the famous FujiFilm building. Odaiba is also home to Tokyo’s only beach.
The annual Cherry Blossom Festival begins in Washington DC this weekend, and the blossoms are starting to bloom. Below are some pictures I took walking around the tidal basin by the Jefferson Memorial today.
When I was in Tokyo last December I stayed at the Marriott Courtyard Tokyo Ginza.
I booked a standard queen size room, and checked in to room 1008 on the 10th floor. I asked at the front desk about the possibility of an upgraded room and was told that all of the rooms on the executive floor were already booked. As a platinum member I chose the welcome gift, of “Orange Juice, Fruit, and Japanese cake.”
The room itself was small by typical American standards, but huge by Tokyo standards . Some of the interesting touches included the two Japanese style robes on top of the bed, and a cool lighting control panel next to the bed that can be used to turn on and off all of the lights in the room. Many Japanese hotels still use metal “keys” for the room — the courtyard does one better, and has RFID key-cards that you simply touch to the door to unlock it.
The room also had a medium size work desk, flat panel television, sofa/chair thing, and a mini-bar refrigerator. I found the room to be nice and quiet — very important for me!
The bathroom, like most Japanese hotels, had a toilet with a Japanese bidet seat. The bathroom was well stocked with toiletries including toothbrushes, toothpaste, hair brushes, and two *individually wrapped* cotton swabs.
The only real negative for the Courtyard is that the air conditioning and heat is either on or off for the whole hotel. When I was there in December, it was a pretty warm day, and the room was a bit too warm for my tastes — but no air conditioning was available because the hotel was seat for “heat” and not A/C. At least the window in room opened so I could get some fresh air that way.
Getting from the Courtyard to the airport is a snap, as there is a Limousine bus that picks up in front of the Courtyard every hour bound for Narita. 3000 Yen, and well worth it! Location wise the Courtyard is a pretty central area in Ginza — just a few blocks from the Higashi-Ginza metro stop, and right across the street from an AM/PM and a Denny’s.
Overall I highly recommend the Courtyard, it’s quiet, centrally located, and relatively inexpensive for an American chain hotel in Tokyo.
Shibuya is a popular meeting and hangout spot for the 20-something crowd in Tokyo. Being such a busy place, people need a meeting spot before heading out to the bars — and that meeting spot is at the Hachiko statue outside the train station. After the bars, folks also need a place to spend the night when all the trains stop running, and what better place than a love hotel with that “special” someone?