Tuesday, April 25, 2006

Baseball and The Park Hyatt



We'd booked an over night stop at a lovely Ryokan, (Japanese guesthouse), called 'Ryokan Katsutaro Annex' in Ueno district as a way of getting out of Takayama and into Tokyo a few days early. The place was great, the owners were very friendly and actually apologised to us that our fantastic room with TV, private bathroom and tea & coffee making facilities wasn't bigger. With a nice room to come back to we took our first steps into Tokyo and ended up at a baseball match of all things. Baseball is huge in Japan, it was introduced in 1873 and, after Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig visited in 1934 the Yomiuri started it's own team, The Giants are still Japan's most popular team and it was this team we were to see play the Hinsahn Tigers.



Neither Beth nor I know the slightest thing about baseball, our evening was full of comments like, "So is it like rounders where you can...", and "What's he doing now? Is he supposed to wiggle his bottom like that?", so we were really there just to soak up the atmosphere and try something new. At first we were positioned in the standing-room only section, jostling with the Japanese for a view of the pitch and trying not to spill our beers but three quarters of the way in a highly lovely couple appeared at our shoulders and offered us their tickets as they were just leaving. We thanked them profusely and walked down to our new seats closer to the action. Even if you don't watch the game there's plenty to keep you interested including the pretty young girls walk up and down the aisles carrying vats of beer on their backs and dispensing it from a nozzle 'Ghostbusters' style into plastic cups. Every so often play stops and the cheerleaders pop out to shake their booties whilst grown men dressed as animals fire t-shirts into the crowd from huge slingshots. Then they go back in and play resumes as if nothing untoward had just occured. It was all hugely exciting and we both came out grinning like idiots.



The following moring we packed up our bags, prepared ourselves to feel vastly underdressed and headed off for two nights at the Park Hyatt Hotel Tokyo where we'd booked ourselves a Deluxe King room as there were no ordinary King rooms left. From the moment we arrived we were treated like Kings. It was chuffin' brilliant. Everyone bowed and bid us 'Konichiwa Mr. Catchpole-san', (or something like that), our bags were whipped out of our hands and we were placed in the care of a highly charming man called Adrian who treated us like the Beckhams'.
The room was something else, about the size of our flat it contained the biggest bathroom I've ever had the pleasure of using, (including a sci-fi loo that had a heated seat, bidet and dryer function built in), a 32 inch plasma tv and entertainment unit, a dressing room, electric curtains, mini-bar and electric curtaains. We relaxed into our complimentary kimono robes & slippers immediately, popped on some music and let ourselves sink in to the luxurious bed linen. The view from the window, (we were on the 47th floor) took in the urban sprawl of Tokyo and, had the weather been better, we would've been able to see Mount Fuji in the distance. I don't believe that in the past four months I've been more relaxed than looking out over that view from such a beautifully tranquil room.
That first afternoon we ventured out and discovered in the basement a brilliant Deli and patisserie where we took lunch and bought some bits 'n bobs for a private supper in our room with the wine we'd got earlier from the local supermarket. After this we headed back, (we wanted to spend as much time in the room as possible - understandable I think), to make use of the room's DVD player and to watch several of the hooky DVDs we'd acquired on our travels.
After a heavy stint of DVD watching we felt in need of some exercise so we headed up to the pool where we swam for a bit and I weighed up the pros and cons of using the running machine against going back to the room to soak in the plunge bath whilst watching the TV in the bathroom. Guess which path I chose.



The following day we did much the same only leaving the room to marvel at the lovely, (and expensive), restaurants within the hotel and to wander aimlessly around the area. To our surprise we came across a lovely little exhibition of graphic art and a Conran shop in the same building.
That night we gave the 'New York Grill Bar' a miss, (it's the one Bill Murray & Scarlet Johensen use at the very top of the hotel in the film), as it involved a 10 pound cover charge each before you'd even bought a drink, and opted for the cover-charge-free bar on the 41st floor. The view was no less impressive and we whiled away our evening drinking cocktails and eating the complimentary nuts.
After two nights of this level of luxury you'll understand why we were so sorry to have to leave the following day. We took in one last swim and a bath and basked in the comfort of the room until 12 when we had to leave.
We were heading to Ikebukoro prefecture to stay in another Ryokan for five nights.

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