Elevated ground
looking down on the city
playing an actor
With no work on the docket anymore, today I headed off to
have some fun and check some things out with Aykut and my dad. We went to
Shinjuku first to walk around and head to a destination I’ve wanted to go to
for a long time. I’ve already spent quite a bit of time in Shinjuku, but
considering the station is the busiest in the world and has about a million
exits, and the surrounding area often seems just as busy as it is inside,
there’s always more to find. One cool thing I spotted was an MLB Café. I had no
idea something like that existed in Japan and almost certainly would have eaten
there if I had not been with two lovely gentlemen who don’t care about baseball
about a hundredth as much as I do.
The destination I’ve been waiting to visit is the New York Bar, in the Tokyo Park Hyatt Hotel. The bar and restaurant is super nice, is located on the 52nd floor of the hotel, features an astounding view, has delicious drinks and incredibly accommodating staff. However, the real reason it’s a destination for me is that it is the setting for many scenes in one of my all-time favorite movies, Lost in Translation. We needed to get some directions from a different Hyatt hotel in order to find the Park Hyatt, but the walk was very nice. It took us past the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building and through some cool city parks and plazas, some very cool architecture and some of Tokyo’s biggest broadcasting buildings. When we got to the hotel we went in and discovered there was still some work to do. The place is like a convention centre and there was a big on-stage performance going on in one part of the massive lobby. We asked for directions and found the hotel lobby area, up one floor. The atmosphere was immediately lovely once we went up. Aykut commented about how even the carpeting was incredibly plush and bouncy. We had to take two elevators to get up to the 52nd floor, as you have to walk through a second lobby and by some really nice lounges and a restaurant on the 47th floor to get to the exclusive elevator to the New York Bar. When we got all the way to the top we were greeted by three different women standing in front of a panel of windows showing off the amazing view. We discovered, unfortunately, that Aykut wouldn’t be allowed to stay because he was wearing shorts, but they still offered to show him around the bar before he left. My dad and I stayed and had one drink before rejoining him downstairs on the 47th floor. We both ordered a Dark and Stormy, which was very tasty and enjoyed the surroundings. The place is pretty exquisite, but the layout is not exactly what you’d expect from the film.
The destination I’ve been waiting to visit is the New York Bar, in the Tokyo Park Hyatt Hotel. The bar and restaurant is super nice, is located on the 52nd floor of the hotel, features an astounding view, has delicious drinks and incredibly accommodating staff. However, the real reason it’s a destination for me is that it is the setting for many scenes in one of my all-time favorite movies, Lost in Translation. We needed to get some directions from a different Hyatt hotel in order to find the Park Hyatt, but the walk was very nice. It took us past the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building and through some cool city parks and plazas, some very cool architecture and some of Tokyo’s biggest broadcasting buildings. When we got to the hotel we went in and discovered there was still some work to do. The place is like a convention centre and there was a big on-stage performance going on in one part of the massive lobby. We asked for directions and found the hotel lobby area, up one floor. The atmosphere was immediately lovely once we went up. Aykut commented about how even the carpeting was incredibly plush and bouncy. We had to take two elevators to get up to the 52nd floor, as you have to walk through a second lobby and by some really nice lounges and a restaurant on the 47th floor to get to the exclusive elevator to the New York Bar. When we got all the way to the top we were greeted by three different women standing in front of a panel of windows showing off the amazing view. We discovered, unfortunately, that Aykut wouldn’t be allowed to stay because he was wearing shorts, but they still offered to show him around the bar before he left. My dad and I stayed and had one drink before rejoining him downstairs on the 47th floor. We both ordered a Dark and Stormy, which was very tasty and enjoyed the surroundings. The place is pretty exquisite, but the layout is not exactly what you’d expect from the film.
For supper, the three of us went to Ikebukuro to meet Aykut
and I’s PC, Satoko, for supper. Aykut needed to get some letters from his
students he’d forgotten at the school and was relieved to be getting them back.
Our quartet went to the restaurant I’ve been to and written about twice before,
Gottsui, the place with the rubber chickens and the crazy staff. This time our
entertainment came in the form of me requesting a rubber chicken for our table
and from the place’s new drink promotion. The promotion involved rolling a die
to get a deal on a whiskey and coke. There were three potential outcomes, one
for rolls of 1-6, 7-9 and 10-12. However, the Japanese on the poster was
incorrect and the concept was so counterintuitive that Satoko spent a full half
hour discussing it with our server. We couldn’t believe how long it took before
we finally got our drink orders in. It was a moment fit for Lost in Translation. We all had a nice meal and it was fantastic
to spend a bit more time with Satoko, even if it was thanks to Aykut forgetting
something and us all having to do a bit of running around to meet up.
After supper we all went to the batting centre in Ikebukuro and hit some balls, played some crazy air hockey, and made my dad play the drumming game Aykut and I enjoy playing for the first time. The air hockey was crazy because after a goal with one of the normal size pucks about 40 smaller pucks all came flying down onto the table. The team of Aykut and Aengus won the air hockey matches, but at least Satoko and I are the best in the batting cage, and while Aykut is getting pretty professional, my dad needs a bit more fine-tuning before he can say he's perfected the art of virtual traditional Japanese drumming.
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