In the morning, we took the JR line to Kawasaki to look at electronic dictionaries for my friend, but we didn’t find any. Then we took a 10 minute taxi ride to Costco from the Kawasaki station and my friend bought a couple things like snacks and toilet paper, etc.
Then we decided that we should save time and just eat something quick there, so we had:
Costco HOT DOG
and Costco PIZZA
I was surprised that they actually had garbage cans at Costco because you could hardly ever find one in Japan. The last time I had a piece of candy wrap in my hands for 2 hours and still couldn’t find a garbage can.
Anyways we brought as many bags as we could to carry the stuff we bought. On the way home, I came across the Subaru Legacy Blitzen Touring Wagon. Looks really cool!!!
After dropping stuff at home, we headed out again to Ginza to go visit the Peninsula Hotel which just opened in September. The lobby was nice, but not as grand as I would have expected in a Peninsula hotel.
We went to The Lobby to have afternoon tea. It wasn’t all that impressive and you can see people constantly walking in and out of the hotel.
Of course I had to have my Iced Lemon Tea of accompany -
The Peninsula Classic Afternoon Tea Set with freshly baked quiche, fruit tarts, tea cakes, pastries and scones.
After we were done, we took a tour of the hotel before we left. We went down to The Peninsula Boutique & Café downstairs. Then when we were on the way to the Tokyo Metro, we cam across the parking lot downstairs and guess what we found:
Rolls Royce
Maserati
Aston Martin
We then took the Tokyo Metro to the Roppongi station which was only a few stations away to visit the Ritz-Carlton Tokyo. Just like the Park Hyatt, it started at the 45th floor of the building with offices underneath.
The lobby was pretty small and it seemed like they jammed the 2 restaurants and the lobby lounge in a very small area. The only other complaint was that the receptionist at the hotel didn’t quite understand English when I called to ask for directions, which was weird for such a high end international hotel.
There were 2 restaurants and we went to the French fusion restaurant called Forty Five. We had a great view of Tokyo and despite the fact that there were no more window seats, we were able to catch a glimpse of the Tokyo Tower.
The restaurant was really dark and it wasn’t too crowded either and had a pretty pleasant atmosphere. The manager there was very friendly and actually cared enough to drop by to say hi and hand us one of his business cards. And just like other Ritz-Carlton Hotels, the staff there remember your name.
Curry Flavored Blue Crab Soup
Baked Hokkaido Scallops, Vegetable Tagliouni, Confit Tomato, Vermouth Sauce
Prawn And Scallop Brochette, Truffled Pommes Puree, Shellfish Veloute
Roasted Duck Breast, Aubergine, Prosciutto And Burdock Chutney, Hermitage Sauce
After we were done eating, we spent a few minutes admiring the beautiful city at night.
The entrance to the restaurant is the Wine Bar Labels, and I took a picture of it because it looked quite nice despite it being very dark…
Then we left the hotel and took the Tokyo Metro to go to Shinjuku to pick up a Crimson Red Nintendo DS Lite and a Japanese dictionary before the stores closed at 9pm. On the train, I saw 4 people in a row sleeping.
I have always wanted to talk about my friend’s phone. It’s the Sharp 913SH slider TV phone. Very nice phone with a HUGE screen and most importantly you can watch TV on it! It even comes with a stand so you can be watching TV and charging it at the same time! Too bad they don’t have phones like this over here in the US…
