Japan Journal 2008

I travelled to Japan from my current home in Bermuda via New York, the flight from New York is about 14 hours and I paid for it with air miles. I chose to fly to and from Tokyo (Narita airport), however it is also possible to fly to Osaka (Kansai) which is about 350 miles away and convenient for Kyoto, the old capital and in my view a must see destination in any Japan trip. It is also fairly common to fly into one airport and out of another.

Narita Airport is about 80km from the centre of Tokyo and taxis are very expensive, it would easily cost £150 in a taxi so the best advice is to take the train or an airport bus into the city. I am not sure how much this cost as uncharacteristically we had not researched properly and ended up jumping into one of only three taxis outside the airport. We jumped out and diverted to a train station somewhere between Narita and Tokyo once we saw the fare increasing at an alarming rate. The train fare from wherever we were was £5 each. On the way back we took an airport bus which picked up at the hotel and this cost £15 each and took just under two hours.

We visited four different parts of Japan on our trip and made most of the journeys by Shinkansen, the bullet train. It makes a lot of sense to buy a Japan Rail pass which allows unlimited travel for one, two or three weeks, see www.japantravel.co.uk for details of where to buy. The costs for the different durations are roughly £140, £225, £275 respectively in ordinary class or £170, £300, £400 in green (first) class. You need to buy an exchange order for the rail pass before you enter Japan and this can be exchanged for the pass at the airport or any station once in Japan.

We did not buy the rail pass as this is not so easy to do from Bermuda. Also we wanted to travel on the Nozomi (super express) bullet trains, which you cannot do with the pass. I had thought the Nozomi would be a very different kind of train to the other Shinkansen but it was not really, it just made less stops along the way. Most of our trips were on the Nozomi.

I definitely recommend the green class, we made one journey in ordinary class and it was noticeably less comfortable and more crowded than green. The trains were in very good condition and we never got tired of watching the trains come and go and have taken many photographs of them. We are by no means train-spotters, but they are a very different shape to the trains we know. Another difference is they run on time, our first journey was almost 1,000km and we arrived the exact minute we were supposed to.

We explored Tokyo using the subway and local train system. It was extremely easy to buy tickets and navigate the system. The only slightly confusing part was leaving the station, much bigger than any station on the London underground, with many exits and it is not always easy to work out which one you need. We avoided using the subway during rush hour as we have heard it can be extremely crowded, it was absolutely fine at the times of day we did use it.

We also attempted to use the subway in Kyoto, however after staring at the map for quite some time we had to give up and get a taxi. It was very confusing and the stations did not appear to even have the same names as the stations in our guide book map of the system, hence we could not work out where we needed to head.

Taxis in all of the places we visited were plentiful, in fact so plentiful I am not sure how a taxi driver could make a living. For short journeys around a city, the prices are reasonable. Japanese taxi drivers take great pride on their vehicles which are spotlessly clean and most are adorned with lace doilies, the taxi drivers all wear white gloves and the doors will open automatically. You do not need to tip the taxi driver, I think it might be slightly insulting. In fact tipping is not expected anywhere, I found that quite refreshing as it is sometimes difficult to know what is the right amount to tip from one country to the next.

I had established some years ago that when I went to Japan, the best time would be Spring or Autumn. The summer can get hot, humid and wet and the winter is a bit too cold for my liking on holiday. We had great weather in March, it was warmer that we expected in fact, averaging about 15c and we had rainfall on two out of fourteen days. Those days were a total wash out though, it can rain for a long time and seemed heavier than typical rain in UK.

My trip started in Tokyo and I used the famous bullet train to travel around the country, selecting a few stop offs along the way and then returning to Tokyo for the final few nights.

Tokyo~~~~

We started and ended in Tokyo and overall had five full days which was neither too long nor too short. I had expected Tokyo to be hectic, crowded and perhaps over-whelming. This was not the case though, it is a large city but easy to navigate and I thought even the really busy shopping areas were far less crowded than London or New York say. I also think the inherent politeness and kindness of Japanese eliminated the possibility of feeling overwhelmed. We chose a couple of places to go each day; Meiji Jingu gardens and shrine was a good start and from here we walked to Shinjuku which is a busy shopping and eating area, lots of bright lights and photo opportunities.

My husband had been looking forward to Akihabara, which is the main shopping area for the latest technology and gadgets, however I don’t think it lived up to his expectations. I also think this was the one place in Tokyo which was overwhelming, lots of people shouting offers through megaphones, thankfully I had decided to go back to the hotel and have a massage so missed this excursion. Roppongi Hills is a new modern shopping area, we went there but left fairly quickly unimpressed. Very strange layout for a shopping mall, hard to find the shops! Unfortunately our planning let us down again the day we wanted to see the Imperial Palace as it was shut (Monday). Note that you need to organise a visit to the palace in advance, your hotel can assist with this.

Akasuka was one of our favourite parts of Tokyo, we spent a very enjoyable morning there strolling through the traditional style market place and admiring the temples.

Overall, Tokyo was a very enjoyable city to just wander around and I never tired of the night skyline from the high floor of our hotel.

Hiroshima~~~~

Hiroshima is a four hour train journey from Tokyo, I very much enjoyed the journey itself to start with. This was our first trip on the bullet train and we were very excited about it. We only had a day and half in Hiroshima and this was quite enough. We spent two night here, I would recommend trying to reduce that to just one night. With an early arrival and late departure the following day, it is more than enought time.

The main attraction in Hiroshima is the peace memorial and museum of course. We spent a few hours here and found the self guided audio tour very interesting. It did get very crowded around the displays though and this took away some of our enjoyment.

In the afternoon, our plan had been to go to the Miyakjima shrine, which stands in the sea and is supposedly one of the most scenic views in Japan. However this was one of the two days of our trip when the heavens opened and we could not face the ferry ride over there, being already drenched. On a better day though, I definitely think this would have been worth a visit.

Kyoto~~~~

Kyoto to me is old Japan. The more traditional nature of the place is self evident from the style of architecture, number of temples and shrines and we even saw several geisha girls going about their daily business. They have painted white faces, elaborate hairstyles and attract a lot of attention even from other Japanese.

Whilst we were in Kyoto, we made the 45 minute train ride to Himeji castle. The castle was built in the 16th century, it very large and one of the best preserved as it escaped being bombed during the world wars. The castle is quite large and you can access every floor of it so it is easy to spend two or three hours here and well worth it.

The next day we went to Kinkakuji, the Golden temple, which was beautiful. It was very crowded though but it was not a long visit as you can’t go inside this temple. Later we decided to visit Pontocho, which is apparently the place to go in the evening, but we had the same trouble I mentioned earlier and although we walked up and down the street, we didn’t venture inside anywhere.

We had three nights, two and a half days in Kyoto. This was an adequate amount of time, but another day would have been welcome too.

Takayama~~~~

I am not exactly sure where I first got the idea of Takayama from possibly at some point I looked at organised tours to get ideas for our itinerary. It took about three hours and two train journeys from Kyoto to get here, the final two hours were on a local wide-view train and we passed through some beautiful mountain scenery to reach Takayama. Arguably, that was the best part of the visit!

We had two nights, one and half days here and sadly the only full day was spoilt by torrential rain and we were soaked and miserable. This probably clouded the experience for us, we decided to go to the folk village first but we got drenched on the way there, then it was badly sign posted and we couldn’t even find it. If it had not been raining we would have looked a bit harder, but we gave up and decided to go back to our ryokan to dry off instead.

There are some very pretty streets to explore here but I found Takayama to be bigger and more developed than I had expected or hoped for. I was thinking it would be a quaint village, the Japanese equivalent of the Cotswolds perhaps but instead I found a fairly large, concrete town that has sadly been a victim of its own success in attracting tourists. Like me, yes I know. I would advise giving Takayama a miss and finding somewhere else in the mountains to visit.


Japan was unintimidating, clean, efficient and the kindness and friendliness of the Japanese people transcended any language barriers. I had often heard that it is an expensive country but I don’t think this is necessarily the case, we chose to stay in high end hotels and ryokans but there are plenty of options in all price ranges. The rail pass is not expensive and excellent value for money. Eating out was very affordable and in fact the only expensive meals we had were those taken in our expensive Tokyo hotels. Alcohol was probably the only item that I thought was noticeably more expensive than in the UK e.g. £10 for a glass of wine and £5 for a pint in a bar (not hotel bar).

I think my only disappointment of the trip was that I thought outside Tokyo more would remain of old Japan, or should I say, my vision of old Japan. I saw some evidence and reminders of the past, but less than I thought. It is indeed a thoroughly modern country.

Unlike say London, which has a very international restaurant scene, I found that the cuisine on offer in Japan was predominantly Japanese. We saw a relatively small number of non-Japanese places to eat and those we did see tended to be fast food joints. I would hasten to add that we enjoy and were more than happy to stick with Japanese food, but this was our observation.

Our guidebook informed us that there were thousands of places to eat in the main centres of Tokyo and Kyoto and I am sure this is true. Nevertheless we did experiences some difficulties. Firstly, many places are quite small, with some seats along a bar and perhaps a few tables elsewhere, this meant there tended to be queues which put us off somewhat. I have a rule, I never queue for restaurants.

The next problem was menu. We found only a few places provided English menus and / or had staff who spoke English. Most of the time, we had to choose from a picture menu, but not all have these either. We certainly ended up leaving several establishments as there was no English menu, picture menu and no English spoken.

Once we did get to eat, the standard was very high in the overwhelming majority of places, I definitely thought there was much less hit and miss about the eating experience as there can be in other cities and particularly when walking in off the street. Accordingly my tip for dining; is that if you find somewhere that is not busy and has a picture menu then you might as well give it a try rather than shop around for somewhere else. During the first few days of our holiday, we passed up some places only to regret it an hour or two later when we couldn’t find anywhere else.

One tends to assume Japanese food is predominately sushi, of which we are huge fans, so I was surprised that we did not have it very often, in fact the only place we did was in the ryokans. We saw a few sushi bars, however found these were significantly outnumbered by the outlets serving noodles, rice dishes, gyoza (steamed dumplings) or panko (breaded) chicken or pork.

I found the eating experience to be a functional one, people would come in, eat, then leave more or less immediately, no lingering over a glass of wine or beer at lunch. Prices were very reasonable, we usually only drunk water and then spent about £5 each on lunch, £10 at the most expensive place.

We did not eat out in the evening very often, we had several nights in ryokans where the meal is provided and we also ate in the hotel restaurants a couple of nights, I got the impression however having dinner out was much the same experience as lunch, i.e. quick and functional. I could not possibly say that there are not restaurants offering a traditional western style dining experience, but we did not find any outside the hotels.

Dinner in the ryokan was certainly a novelty and something I had looked forward to a lot. Dinner is served in your own room whilst you are sat on the floor and there can be up to ten small courses served one at a time. I enjoyed the ceremony part of it all, however some of the food was maybe just a little bit too authentic! I will never forget the moment we realised the bowl of glass udon noodles were actually baby eels.

We were a little disappointed with "nightlife" in Japan, even in Tokyo. There did not seem to be much on offer for 30-something couples. I believe that Tokyo has an exciting nightclub scene, but that does not interest me anymore (not for these last ten years) and the rest seemed to be rather dodgy looking places, with dodgy sounding names that I am not sure a man should take his wife too.

In Tokyo, Kyoto and Hiroshima we found ourselves wandering the town just looking for a "normal" pub or bar in which to have a quiet drink. On most nights we failed to find a single venue suitable despite wandering around the busiest part of town for over an hour. In Kyoto we came across a wine bar, however the cheapest bottle of wine was £250, so we swiftly left. In Hiroshima none of the three pubs in our guidebook actually existed and finally in Tokyo on our last night we found an Irish bar that was worth staying in for more than one drink. I did have to drink Guinness though, wine in Japan is universally awful. They are not a nation of saki, not wine, drinkers.

I have been interested in trying the Mandarin Oriental chain for a while. As we had already decided that Japan was going to be a holiday of indulgence, the Tokyo Mandarin seemed a good place to try the brand. After our flight from New York, we travelled into the city by train arriving at "Tokyo Station". I believe most people would arrive here as it is a very expensive taxi ride from the airport and the hotel private transfer was a whopping £250 each way. The hotel is located near the station but not really walking distance with big luggage.

Upon arrival we were greeted by a bellman who took charge of the luggage whilst an assistant escorted us to reception on the 38th floor. Check in took a few moments and I was pleased that the newspaper options included every single UK national. So often when I travel I find the English language newspapers offered are only the American ones and possibly an FT. Newspaper duly ordered and the same person who took us to reception escorted us to our room, taking the lift down to the 34th floor.

Upon entering the room, the assistant flicked a switch and the blind slowly started to move up to reveal the Tokyo skyline to us. As newly arrived guests and first time visitors to Tokyo, it was a stunning and memorable visual effect.

The room itself was pretty stunning as well. I was pleased our guide did not outstay her welcome to show us how to operate the TV, light switches and every other conceivable "feature" of the room, as I wanted to look around myself as soon as possible. I also had an overwhelming urge to grab my camera and start taking photos. And whilst in honesty this is not the first time I have taken photos of somewhere I have stayed, it is not something that happens very often.

The room was very large, floors were wooden, neutral colours throughout and the furniture was contemporary and very stylish. Needless to say everything was spotless and looked brand new. I liked the room layout, as you walked in there was a large dressing area with wardrobes immediately to the left and plenty of space to leave our rather large suitcases rather than have them clutter up the main space. Walking down a small hallway and the bathroom was on the left, tea making facilities and a choice of complimentary herbal teas on the right and then the room opened up to the main bedroom / living area.

We had a king sized bed, a two seater sofa, armchair and desk. At the end of the bed was a small ottoman which contained kimonos and a pair of pajamas each. We were very pleased with our 50 inch flat screen TV and the choice of English speaking channels we found.

The bathroom was equally impressive. The floors and walls were stone and it was what I shall describe as a semi-wet room, in that the shower, separate bath and surrounding area were on the same level. The bath was a huge, deep, oval shaped tub. A pillow and a tray of bath salts was provided and I indulged every evening after a day's sightseeing. The shower was impressive too, a huge cubicle with a choice of different shower heads to choose from, including the dustbin lid one directly above and the ones at various heights on the walls. We also experienced our first Japanese loo, complete with heated seat, fake flushing sound (apparently to mask embarrassing bathroom noises), built in deodorizer and scary looking retractable washing arms.

It was about 6pm by this time and after our long journey we decided to spend our first night in Tokyo by ordering room service and watching TV. We found there to be a good range of Western and Japanese cuisine but no sushi. We both decided on something quick and Japanese washed down with a bottle of Cloudy Bay Sauvignon Blanc. The noodle dishes were about £20 each and the wine £50, which was about what we expected, in fact it could have been much worse!

Just after we had finished eating, two members of staff turned up for turn down. The turn down was like having a second service every day in that used towels and all the other supplies like toiletries and herbal teas would be replaced as well.

The next day we decided not to bother with breakfast in the hotel (not included in our room rate) in favour of finding a Starbucks. We have a bit of a thing about Starbucks as there aren't any in Bermuda. We took the lift back up to reception and presented ourselves at the concierge desk. They were very helpful in proving maps of the area, and told us the location of the nearest Starbucks and metro station, the latter being right under the hotel and the former thankfully only a short stroll away. We also asked if they could book the train tickets for the rest of our trip, something we had not found a way of doing in advance. We went through our plans, which involved several train journeys over the next two weeks, but I felt very comfortable that these would be booked just as we asked. Well founded trust. When we got back to the hotel later, we had all our tickets on the right days and times, an itinerary document and the tickets themselves which are printed in Japanese, included handwritten English translations. We were all set.

To leave the hotel we had to cross the reception area and go down a different set of lifts than those you can use to access your room. At first I found it quite irritating to have to go up to the 38th floor, walk across the huge reception and then take a different lift back down to the 34th floor. However forever the voice of reason my husband pointed out that it was normal to have to pass through reception when you enter a hotel and if the set up wasn't like this, any Tom, Dick or Harry could wander in and access the guest room floors without being noticed by staff.

The hotel is in a fairly quiet neighbourhood, there is a large upscale department store next door, a couple of other shops and there was one side street where all the buildings were traditional Japanese in style, seemed to be mainly places to eat and we thought would be worth exploring in the evening. There was not much else for your average holiday maker but this didn't matter at all because the metro station which was an interchange station was very close by. One evening, we did go back to that side street to explore, but as we found elsewhere in Japan, places to eat tended to be functional places that one would not spend much more than 30 minutes in and most bars were rather dodgy looking ones. So there was not much to suit us by way of evening entertainment but we found that generally so not a negative for this hotel.

The hotel does have a few different restaurants featuring different international cuisines, but we didn't try them out, although we had room service twice as we were happy to stay in as it was so comfortable and pleasant. I think I also felt a certain need to get my money's worth out of the room, I will come to price later. We went to the bar on the 37th floor a couple of times at the end of the day, the drinks were quite expensive £10 for a very small glass of champagne but it was a beautiful bar, very elegant and we enjoyed being there.
On our second afternoon I had booked a treatment in the spa, I opted for a two hour Thai massage and had been advised to go to the spa an hour before the appointment to "enjoy the facilities". Well I did this but actually found the facilities a bit disappointing, all there was were some oversized baths, I wouldn't call a pool because it was not big enough or deep enough to swim in and showers. I didn't really need an hour for this so I ended up spending most of the time in the "relaxation room" reading. The treatment was very nice though and I got to keep another pair of silk pajamas.

Finally to the room costs, well this is the Mandarin Oriental and was always going to be a huge extravagance. We did not opt for the cheapest room but we were a long way from the most expensive as well, paying the equivalent of about £420 a night.

I really enjoyed my stay here and whilst I would hesitate to call a £420pn hotel room "value for money", I don't resent paying it and think I got just what I wanted and expected.

Kyoto was the third stop on my tour of Japan. I imagined that the city would represent old Japan and indeed the style of architecture, number of temples and shrines and the common sight of geisha girls going about their daily business, reinforced my preconception. It was therefore fitting that we would try the traditional Japanese style accommodation, the ryokan, for the first time in Kyoto.

Although we wanted traditional, the holiday was something of an indulgence for us, so we were not going for budget. We therefore contemplated our options in the luxury end of the ryokan market and finally decided on the Tamahan. We made out booking through www.japaneseguesthouses.com , who were also very helpful in answering initial queries concerning the rooms, bathroom facilities etc.

Tamahan is situated in Gion, the historical part of Kyoto. It is on a small side street, but only moments from thriving, old-fashioned market streets. We were doubly fortunate to be staying during the annual (I think) Festival of Lanterns. In the evenings the streets were lit up by trails of lanterns, the shrines were illuminated and the shops and stalls were open until late, we loved wandering around in the evenings.

We arrived in Kyoto by train and took a taxi to the ryokan, it is advisable to print out the address in Japanese script to avoid potential language barriers with the taxi driver, who probably will not understand English. We were very impressed upon arrival and excited to be staying in such a traditional looking establishment, so far we had only seen a very modern Japan. The entrance is down a shady garden path and a curtain is over the doorway, which is kept open most of the time. There are only about ten rooms at the ryokan and presumably we were the only people due to arrive that day as we were greeted by name and invited to take a seat on the steps by the doorway to change out of our shoes and into provided slippers.

Suitably booted we were shown to our room. It was large, with straw tatami floor coverings and the furnishings comprised a very low table, cushions and Japanese artwork. We were delighted and really felt we were in Japan. Kimonons were provided for both of us, which we tended to wear during dinner and most of the time we were in the ryokan.

A number of rooms will share bathroom facilities, but we decided to take a room with private facilities. The loo was western style which we were pleased about as we saw no need to go overboard with our need to get an authentic experience. The bath was Japanese style though and it was fabulous. It was a small, square but a very deep wooden tub with a lid. Each evening it was run for us and a few lemons were chucked in as this ... actually I don’t know exactly what this did ... but we liked it. The lid was great too as the bath was run at anytime in the afternoon and kept the water warm until we wanted to use it.

The evening meal would be served at whatever time was requested earlier in the day. To start with, water and any other drinks ordered would be brought through and at this point we knew we should take our positions kneeling or sitting on cushions on the floor on either side of our very low dining room table. Courses were very traditional, small and served one at a time. On the whole the staff knew how long to leave it before returning to the room to collect the empty dishes. A meal comprised about eight to ten courses, it was very interesting although some courses were hard work. And some were a bit too slimy for me, like the baby eels. An experience not to be missed, although on our third night I have to confess we decided to eat out!

With the evening meal finished, the staff would clear away the plates, bring some tea and then lay out the futons and duvets for the night. We slept very comfortably and whilst the walls are not designed to be sound proofed, nobody comes to a traditional ryokan to make noise and the other guests were after the same peace and quiet as we were. Breakfast is also provided as standard, there is a choice of western or Japanese breakfast. Much as we love to try other cuisines, when it comes to breakfast we prefer western style and so this is what we opted for. It was served in courses, a bit like the dinner although not nearly as many courses. We received eggs, toast, yogurt, honey and fruit and it was a great start to the day.

My recent holiday to Japan included six nights in Tokyo, four at the beginning and two at the end. We had saved money by booking flights with air miles and it just seemed that time of year to splurge on five star accommodation. We decided to book different hotels for the nights at the beginning and end of the holiday, partly so we could plan our sight seeing more efficiently but mainly just for the variety.

The Park Hyatt hotel is probably most famous for being the hotel of choice in the "Lost in Translation" film. It looked very stylish and fashionable in the film and I must admit that is the main reason I chose it.

The hotel is based in the Shinjuku area of Tokyo, which is one of the busy shopping and restaurant areas. We thought it was a convenient base from which to explore Tokyo, although it is (thankfully) not slap bang in the middle of Shinjuku, it is about a ten or fifteen minute walk to the main areas of activity or a few minutes in a taxi.

We had travelled to Tokyo by train, arriving at the main JR station for the city (simply named Tokyo station). As we could not face the subway with our large luggage we took a taxi to the hotel which cost the equivalent of about £20 (i.e. ¥4,000) and took about 45 minutes due to heavy traffic. The hotel is one of the tallest buildings around and we were impressed with its attractive exterior upon arrival.

Our taxi was immediately met by a couple of staff, one of whom asked our name and took our luggage and the other took us to reception on the 41st floor. Check in service was very personal, not a counter service, rather there were several individual desks and we were invited to take a seat whilst we ran through the usual formalities. The process was quick and efficient to a point, however I was surprised that the receptionist appeared to be looking to see what rooms were available and asked us if we wanted smoking or non-smoking room. It was 3.20pm and I had assumed we would have been allocated a room by this time. We were then told that the room was not ready and would be a few more minutes, which again I found surprising at this time of day. We were ushered away from the desk and told to take a seat up against the wall out of the way whilst the room was readied.

Being a rather impatient creature and suspecting this might take more than a couple of minutes, I decided to keep myself busy by popping upstairs to see the famous (from the film) bar and restaurant and to make a dinner reservation. I was disappointed to be immediately advised that there was no availability whatsoever for that evening, undeterred I asked about the following night and was told I could have 5.30pm or 9.30pm. I replied that these were too early and too late respectively and was met with blank stares and shrugged shoulders. As a hotel guest, I rather thought I should be able to have dinner in the hotel restaurant at least one night during my stay so I politely expressed my disappointment in having just arrived, found my room not ready and the restaurant fully booked for the entire (two day) duration of my stay.

Miraculously and somewhat strangely, this one sentence that I uttered somehow led to the whole evening being opened up and I was able to book a table at the time of my choice for that evening. Whilst at least they did accommodate me, the ease in which they were able to do so was actually quite annoying and made me wonder why I had been told the restaurant was booked out in the first place. I could not help but think it was something to do with pretentiousness as I had just had a long train journey, was dressed for travel, was hot and a bit untidy and maybe didn't look the part right then.

The good news was that by the time I went back to reception our room, which was on the 46th floor, was ready and we were escorted to it.

So far, all the décor in the hotel we had seen was attractive and contemporary and it was therefore something of a surprise when we got to our room. It looked like something circa the late 80's / early 90's. Green carpet, black wooden furniture throughout including the most bizarre integrated TV cabinet/ minibar / general cupboard thing, which dominated the room and defies description, except to say it was awful. As was the coffee table which was held up by a pair of carved human arms. The TV was a bit small for this class of hotel in Tokyo, probably about 30 inch and also had very few English channels to chose from, our previous Tokyo hotel room had a 50 inch flat screen and loads of English language channels. One night we decided to order the Harry Potter movie but the "full screen view" turned out to be a six inch band through the middle of the TV, so we turned it off and demanded the £10 be refunded.

On the positive side, it was a very spacious room and the bed was huge. The bathroom was also spacious and not quite as dated as the bedroom. Off the bathroom, we had a generous space for storing luggage and a dressing area. The views from the room were stunning especially at night and I think most rooms would have had a great view.

After dumping our bags and a quick freshen up, we decided to go back to that famous bar / restaurant on the 52nd floor for a quick cocktail. But we were met at the door and told we could not go in as it does not open until 5pm, we found this very odd for a bar in a 5 star hotel, surely these are normally open most of the day and certainly by 4.15pm. We were told there was a lounge on the 41st floor so we headed down here instead. We wanted a table by the window and took the only one available, only to be told that this particular area of the bar did not open until 5pm! We were sat only a few feet from the area which was open and the people serving would have to walk past us more or less anyway, it all seemed very unaccommodating and we did have to move to the designated area and therefore miss out on a window table, very disappointing with views like this.

We headed back to the upstairs bar half an hour before our dinner reservation so we could enjoy the great views over a pre-dinner cocktail. It is a very pleasant space, the views did not disappoint although from memory the bar looks nothing like it did in the film. Dinner was good too, we decided to have a western meal this night after almost two weeks of Japanese cuisine, we both started with the fois gras and then I had duck and my husband had veal. The food was delicious but pricey, £220 for two courses and a bottle of wine. A bottle of water was down as £10, but thankfully tap water is very drinkable in Japan!

The following evening, after a visit to the local Irish bar, we decided to have some room service. It was delivered promptly and was not as expensive as in the restaurant, but was very ordinary fare. On our departure day, we decided to have a quick brunch in the lounge area on the 41st floor, it was more or less empty, yet when we asked for a window table the staff still were reluctant to accommodate us, claiming they were all booked (although there were still empty tables by the time we left), but we were given a window table on the side of the building with the not quite as good views.

The day before we left, we booked the airport shuttle bus through the hotel at a cost of £15 each. At checkout our bags were taken from us and were waiting for us when we went to get on the bus two hours later, the bus picked us up and departed exactly on time.

The cost per night was ¥67,200 which translates to about £335.

To sum up, this hotel was something of a disappointment and did not live up to my expectations. I felt it was living off its past fame (some members of staff did mention the film to us) and it was pretentious but had no reason to be. I would not go back and I would not recommend it to anyone.