Erica & Todd go to Japan! Day 5: Tokyo

Tried to go to a hotel for breakfast, but the hotel was gone, so went to the New Otani Hotel and had traditional Japanese breakfast. Very tasty. Love that. Doesn't tide me over too long, but I love it. BTW, the hotel is very confusing to walk around; it's laid out strangely. It also has some love, although compact Japanese style gardens.

Rained during breakfast but the rest of the day was pleasant. On the whole, the weather has been great: nice and cool. However, interior temperatures have been too high. I sweat everywhere and the Japanese seem cool & dry. Especially the subway, no matter which company runs it, are all sweatlodges. I feel like a stripper whenever I ride the train. I think that one reason why people are so sleepy on the train is that it's so warm in there.

Tried to visit the detached palace, but it must have been too detached, as we never made it inside the grounds. Still, we had a good walk.

We checked out of the Intercontinental and checked into the Chisun Grand Akasaka Business Hotel. Erica had thought that it was in Asakusa (which is where the Rooster and Rake festival we went to later in the trip was), but luckily we figured it out prior to going all the way there! In any case, the second hotel was in a much more convenient part of the city. It was a great hotel in many respects. The staff was solid, the beds were more comfortable than the Intercontinental, and the property was appealing and well kept up. We chose to move hotels to get a flavor for a different part of the city, as well as try out the newest business hotel in Tokyo, and save a little money. The room was TINY, so so small, barely bigger than the bed. But, free internet! So, we were able to watch TV recorded at home (w/ my SageTV DVR) via Orb. I love technology.

Amusingly, in the elevator going up to our room at some point, after a brief conversation with Erica, an older woman that was in the elevator with us looked at me and said something like "she's very charming"! Japanese people seem to love Erica. Well, who doesn't?

By the way, some thoughts on travel books & guides:

• Time Out Tokyo was very helpful; highly recommended! It doesn't list everything, and it's not perfect, but it's the best book that we looked at prior to our trip.
  
• Streetwise Tokyo, a laminated foldout map, was also great. It's very compact and has detail areas for most of the neighborhoods that you might want to visit. Plus, unlike most tourist maps that you might get for free, it has a scale and all areas on the same map are drawn to the same scale.
  
• The Little Tokyo Subway Guidebook was good, as far as it went, but since the Tokyo subway system is actually composed of lines run by several different companies, it didn't seem to include all of them, and so was incomplete.
• Fodors Japan was not really all that useful.
• It's difficult to get good online maps of Japan / Tokyo, as Google Maps, etc have all their labels in Japanese.
• Due to the way that street addresses were formulated in Tokyo, they are nigh unfindable. Use the Diddlefinger to more easily find Tokyo addresses on a map.