Friday, July 14, 2006
Well now, here it is. Granted, I might be a wee late, but I had a project to deal with. And after that, I had the following celebrations to recover from :) So, the vague details of my Tokyo Escapade :)
Day 1 (June 18, 2006)
Well, it wasn't much of a day. I remember having to drag my ass out of the house at around 5am, since the flight was at 7am. Touched down at Narita Airport at 3:15pm. By the by, Japan is an hour ahead of us. Very long 7-hour flight, if only for the crying baby next to us. We were greeted by one of the concierges. Very sweet girl called Suzuki, who began to explain to us that we'd be taking a shuttle bus down to Tokyo, which would be another hour and 45 minutes. Before the bus arrived, we took a few minutes to take it all in. And then, let it all out :) The toilets there are amazing. They're like, Transformers. In great detail, Denise described to me the functions of the toilet bowls there. For one, the seats are electrically heated. For another, there's a control panel on the right side. What were they for? Automated bidet! And you can control the amount of pressure of the water jet too. The gauge ranges from Tickle to Kinky :) What I thought was hilarious was how there's actually a button to mimic the sound of flushing, in case you decide to take a long dump in there, and you're beginning to feel self-conscious about overstaying your welcome :)
Hell, I still couldn't believe it. I was just happy to have had a cigarette after that flight though :) June's the rainy season there, so it's delightfully cool and windy. Not completely unbearable either. Very pleasant. The bus ride was quite enjoyable.
And then, we arrive at the hotel. This towering mass of stone and steel. The Park Hyatt Tokyo. Heh, on a rainy night, it really does look like something out of a Ghostbusters movie though :) We checked in, and were told by the immaculately polite front desk to head up to the "MTV Hospitality Suite". It was there that Denise and I were greeted by the representatives. At that point of time came the showering of gifts aplenty :) First up was the MONEY. US$500 travelers cheques baby! Other gifts to follow was a Puma gym bag designed for MTV. Inside the bag were an assortment of clothing from the MTV clothing line and stuff tying into Mission Impossible III. Did I already mention the US$500? :)
So after Denise and I recovered from our bout of hyperventilation, we had a Polaroid taken, and that's when we realised we were the only team from South East Asia here! There were 9 other pairs from all over the world. In alphabetical order, the teams were from: America, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Japan, Korea, Poland, Mexico, and Sweden. How cool is that? :) The representatives then informed us that we had the rest of the evening to ourselves. So we lugged all our stuff and headed down to our room. Upon opening the door, we FREAKED. Just to give you an idea of why, remember all the images you see of the rooms on the hotel's website? Exactly the same when you're there. Ridiculous. King-size bed, massive revolving flat-screen TV, fantastic view (we were staying on the 43rd floor), and the most incredible bathroom. By the by, the toilet's are the same everywhere in Tokyo. High-tech as hell. I have pictures to prove it too :)
But wait, what was this on our beds? More gifts?! Inside a simple paper bag were Japanese snacks, and a yukata (cotton kimono) with matching wooden slippers!
Woah, talk about a lot to take in on the first day. It was around 8pm when we finally settled down and unpacked, and we decided to head out and have our first official Japanese meal. Initially, we wanted to check out this Belgian pub called Cafe Hoegaarden. Yes, I know. On hindsight, why on earth would we want Belgian sausages after touching down on Tokyo? I guess it was a good thing we couldn't find the blasted place. One bad thing about the streets of Tokyo: They are not labeled. All those scenes you see of Japanese people getting lost in the city in horror movies? They're not kidding. Hell, even the cab drivers there don't have a clue at times. In the end, we passed by a quaint ramen place and decided to pop in. Important piece of advice we got from Lonely Planet: Most restaurants come with pictures on the menu, so just point to what you want. It was a cold night (like Genting Highlands during the day), so it was mighty refreshing to have some hot broth, noodles, rice and meat on the side, with gyoza dumplings. After polishing off the food, Denise and I walked about a bit more before deciding on heading back to the hotel to get some rest. Judging from the itinerary, we were in for a long day tomorrow, and we wanted to be ready. So, hand in hand, we strolled back, enjoying another cigarette in the cold weather, smiling so hard it looked like someone went ape-shit on us with the stupid stick :)
Stay tuned for Day 2, coming soon! :)
Day 1 (June 18, 2006)
Well, it wasn't much of a day. I remember having to drag my ass out of the house at around 5am, since the flight was at 7am. Touched down at Narita Airport at 3:15pm. By the by, Japan is an hour ahead of us. Very long 7-hour flight, if only for the crying baby next to us. We were greeted by one of the concierges. Very sweet girl called Suzuki, who began to explain to us that we'd be taking a shuttle bus down to Tokyo, which would be another hour and 45 minutes. Before the bus arrived, we took a few minutes to take it all in. And then, let it all out :) The toilets there are amazing. They're like, Transformers. In great detail, Denise described to me the functions of the toilet bowls there. For one, the seats are electrically heated. For another, there's a control panel on the right side. What were they for? Automated bidet! And you can control the amount of pressure of the water jet too. The gauge ranges from Tickle to Kinky :) What I thought was hilarious was how there's actually a button to mimic the sound of flushing, in case you decide to take a long dump in there, and you're beginning to feel self-conscious about overstaying your welcome :)
Hell, I still couldn't believe it. I was just happy to have had a cigarette after that flight though :) June's the rainy season there, so it's delightfully cool and windy. Not completely unbearable either. Very pleasant. The bus ride was quite enjoyable.
And then, we arrive at the hotel. This towering mass of stone and steel. The Park Hyatt Tokyo. Heh, on a rainy night, it really does look like something out of a Ghostbusters movie though :) We checked in, and were told by the immaculately polite front desk to head up to the "MTV Hospitality Suite". It was there that Denise and I were greeted by the representatives. At that point of time came the showering of gifts aplenty :) First up was the MONEY. US$500 travelers cheques baby! Other gifts to follow was a Puma gym bag designed for MTV. Inside the bag were an assortment of clothing from the MTV clothing line and stuff tying into Mission Impossible III. Did I already mention the US$500? :)
So after Denise and I recovered from our bout of hyperventilation, we had a Polaroid taken, and that's when we realised we were the only team from South East Asia here! There were 9 other pairs from all over the world. In alphabetical order, the teams were from: America, Australia, Brazil, Canada, Japan, Korea, Poland, Mexico, and Sweden. How cool is that? :) The representatives then informed us that we had the rest of the evening to ourselves. So we lugged all our stuff and headed down to our room. Upon opening the door, we FREAKED. Just to give you an idea of why, remember all the images you see of the rooms on the hotel's website? Exactly the same when you're there. Ridiculous. King-size bed, massive revolving flat-screen TV, fantastic view (we were staying on the 43rd floor), and the most incredible bathroom. By the by, the toilet's are the same everywhere in Tokyo. High-tech as hell. I have pictures to prove it too :)
But wait, what was this on our beds? More gifts?! Inside a simple paper bag were Japanese snacks, and a yukata (cotton kimono) with matching wooden slippers!
Woah, talk about a lot to take in on the first day. It was around 8pm when we finally settled down and unpacked, and we decided to head out and have our first official Japanese meal. Initially, we wanted to check out this Belgian pub called Cafe Hoegaarden. Yes, I know. On hindsight, why on earth would we want Belgian sausages after touching down on Tokyo? I guess it was a good thing we couldn't find the blasted place. One bad thing about the streets of Tokyo: They are not labeled. All those scenes you see of Japanese people getting lost in the city in horror movies? They're not kidding. Hell, even the cab drivers there don't have a clue at times. In the end, we passed by a quaint ramen place and decided to pop in. Important piece of advice we got from Lonely Planet: Most restaurants come with pictures on the menu, so just point to what you want. It was a cold night (like Genting Highlands during the day), so it was mighty refreshing to have some hot broth, noodles, rice and meat on the side, with gyoza dumplings. After polishing off the food, Denise and I walked about a bit more before deciding on heading back to the hotel to get some rest. Judging from the itinerary, we were in for a long day tomorrow, and we wanted to be ready. So, hand in hand, we strolled back, enjoying another cigarette in the cold weather, smiling so hard it looked like someone went ape-shit on us with the stupid stick :)
Stay tuned for Day 2, coming soon! :)
