Tokyo - starting in style

My big spring vacation trip this year was Tokyo! I loved every minute of it. My friend Zeenat came over from England to visit me, and so a week in Tokyo seemed the perfect start! She arrived on the Friday, and so Saturday was our first proper day of fun! Now, most of you know that I’m a good lil organiser, and I enjoy planning stuff (well, holidays anyway!), so of course I had a mental list of loads of cool stuff I wanted to see and do in the capital. Therefore, we packed an awful lot into to our 5 days, and didn’t really stop to rest until it was time to get back to our ryokan to meet curfew. So on Saturday we started as we meant to carry on…and after a leisurely wake-up, we headed into the city…

Our first stop was the Hotel New Otani, where we took part in traditional Japanese tea ceremony (sado). I had never done this before, as I really wasn’t that fussed by it all, and quite frankly…I hate tea! But, it was on my list of things that I must try once before leaving these shores, and so I thought it would be a great way to kick off Zeenat’s Japanese experience, whilst also allowing me to place a big tick next to it on my list! It was quite short, and we wondered if the woman had rushed a little. When we left she asked us to change the sign on the door to read ‘closed’ because she was going to have lunch! However, it was still a really interesting process to watch and attempt to have any understanding of. The slow turning of the bowls, the perfect precision involved in every movement of the tea preparation, and the calculated steps, bows and pauses, were all fascinating to observe. Of course, we were given our bowl of maccha (powdered green tea) to drink from, which actually wasn’t as bad as I was anticipating, and also a traditional Japanese sweet to accompany the tea. The sweet was awful…no beating about the bush here…just plain awful! I’m not a big fan of Japanese sweets anyway (to say the least!), but I hoped that it might be palatable! Nope!....I tried my best to remain serene and zen-like in the calm tea-room, despite the reaction my taste-buds were having! I glanced over at Zeenat, and I realised that I wasn’t alone! Her smile-through-a –grimace look said it all! Apart from the ghastly sweet, however, the ceremony was thoroughly enjoyable and really interesting. The hotel also had an amazing traditional garden, which we wandered through afterwards. It was really beautiful, complete with red arch bridge, koi pond, and numerous little trails to follow. A nice little oasis in the heart of the city!

We headed to Shibuya for lunch (a yummy yakiniku), and then spent the best part of the afternoon wandering around this area. I introduced Zeenat to purikura and the taiko game, both of which she loved! We looked around some Shibuya shops, got a bit lost now and again, headed to Shinjuku to buy Zeenat a camera, met some random American band who were posing for photos outside Tower Records (‘Waking Ashlin’ or something!)..and then made our way back to our ryokan in Ikebukuro. It was time to get ready for our night of feeling posh! It was Saturday night, and we were going to the Park Hyatt for drinks! Whoooo!

The New York Bar in the Park Hyatt (Shinjuku) is the bar that they use in ‘Lost in Translation’, and I was desperate to go and have just one drink there! Just one drink, because the prices are so astronomical! The hotel is beautiful, and must be an amazing place to stay! From the moment that our taxi pulled up at the front lobby, and our door was opened by one of the doormen, and we were greeted in perfect friendly English, we felt very swish!! Haha! We were escorted from the elevator into the bar, and shown to our table. The view from the bar is breathtaking! A spectacular view over exciting Tokyo! We ordered yummy cocktails (blood orange and champagne for me!), and some chips to munch on (the cheapest thing on the food menu!), and relaxed in the luxurious surroundings. We left at 19:55, as after 8pm you have to pay a 2000yen cover charge! But we had enjoyed a great taste of the Tokyo high life. The service was great, the chips and homemade ketchup were yum, and the cocktails were divine. Our purses were a little lighter, but it was totally worth it!

We headed back into central Shinjuku, and after wandering around ‘dodgy’, yet weird and intriguing Kabukicho…we started to look for somewhere to have dinner. I think it was Zeenat who first spotted the place we decided on..Arabian Rock. It was so much fun!! As you may have guessed, the theme of the restaurant was ‘Arabia’, and after a 30 minute wait for a table, we were finally allowed to enter through the door which had the sign ‘Open sesame’. As we walked in, the guy on the door said something to me in Japanese, and made a gesture. Now, I wasn’t too sure about the Japanese, but the gesture was pretty clear. As we walked inside, we found ourselves in a small room,…empty, except for a magic lamp! Zeenat was like “what do we do?”….”I guess we rub the lamp” I replied! It was so funny!! As soon as we rubbed the lamp, there was a loud bang, a bit of smoke, and another door opened where 2 ladies (wearing kind of belly-dancer outfits) welcomed us! They presented us with another lamp, which I made Zeenat rub, and then there was another bang…a bit more smoke, and finally they led us to our ‘table’! Oh, but it was so much more than a table! It was our very own private Arabian palace room, complete with curtains, pretty lamps and candles, and loads of comfy cushions to lounge on. It was so cool! Haha! We ordered lots of different things from the menu to share, including yummy basil chicken, a great donner-kebab type thing, and another skewered kebab-type thing, which they set on fire for us to cook the meat!...quite a little show! We ate, we drank, we laughed about how random and cool the restaurant was…and then we relaxed and napped on the cushions! A great little find, and a lovely end to our first day in Tokyo.

(One final thing that I want to remember from this evening, but doesn’t really warrant a place in my proper blog-write-up!....my feet were absolutely killing me by the time we got back to Ikebukuro. I’m not used to wearing heels, and so my high-heeled boots that I’d worn for our evening out on the town, were so painful by the time we got back to our subway stop. I therefore decided there was only one thing for it. With Zeenat’s blessing (!!), I took off my boots as soon we arrived at Ikebukuro station, and then walked through the whole station, and then through Ikebukuro itself to our ryokan, in just my socks! I didn’t care that people were looking at me, carefully walking along, clutching my boots! Yes, I got a few odd looks when I went into the convenience store to buy juice, and I had to put my boots down, to pay…but hey ho! No more heels for Lauren!)