Monday, May 14, 2007

Day 1 - Sleeping in Japan, Salary Man Style

Administrative note - sorry if you tried to view the blog and the photos weren't showing up. It should be fixed now and you can see what Rob was doing while he might have been breaking the law.

It’s 2:30 in the morning on Tuesday, and I can’t sleep. What should I do? Blog in the bathtub! Yes, I’m suffering from jet lag, my body is telling me to get my lazy butt out of bed because it thinks it’s almost 11 am, and I don’t want to wake Rob up so I’m typing this while sitting in our nice deep tub in the hotel. It’s one of the most comfortable places I’ve ever blogged (and no, I’m not TAKING a bath. I haven’t become that jet lagged). So before I get to our first full day in Tokyo, I thought I’d talk about our great hotel.

When decided where to stay in Tokyo, I decided to eschew the large “tourist” hotels and suggested staying at a business hotel instead. Everyone was up for it so I made the reservations. Our hotel is called “Hotel Villa Fontaine” in Shiodome, which is a brand new highrise business district. By the way, businessmen in Japan are called “salary men”, hence the title. The hotel is part of a much larger skyscraper, so the lobby is quite impressive.


Our room is quite small, but very comfortable.

It’s all the touches that make it so Japanese. A toilet with built-in bidet controls, a pants press in our very small closet, ceilings that are just right for me but a little too low for Rob.

I love watching the trains go by from our window.

And it’s incredible quiet and comes with a continental breakfast.

The bread is very tasty and you can get chicken curry soup too!

The best part of the hotel is the convenience. There’s an entrance to the metro right in the lobby of the building, and the walk to the metro is quite impressive.


Taking the escalator back to the hotel afforded another great view.


The hotel is very reasonable for Tokyo standards and although they don’t have a concierge, everyone at the front desk is very helpful. So, if you’re in Tokyo, consider going the way of the blue-suited salarymen – you’ll be surprised!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Nice hotel. I'm glad you weren't really taking a bath. That would've been scary will blogging. The view is cool. What a neat building and I see that you have started shopping already!!!

Anonymous said...

I'm so glad we'll be able to follow along on this great trip via the blog! have a wonderful time and keep the entries and photos coming!!

MinaG said...

The hotel is so cool, how it's part of a larger skyscraper, I mean, how neat is that? So many great views of the building, how neat!!!

Anonymous said...

Villa Fontaine is a great value for money hotel eh? I stayed at the brand new Roppongi Annex branch for pre-opening prices and am still grinning. My room looks bigger though, maybe we got upgraded without being aware of it.