Writing these travel blogs has made me nostalgic! When I was younger, we would go on family vacations and my dad would insist on us(my sister and I) writing about our trip. In fact, my sister and I would take notes and compete with each other on churning out the best written essay. And now I'm writing them without being forced to. I guess I've come a long way. I've been spending most of my longish train rides writing. The trip from Kyoto to Tokyo is best done via the Shinkansen ( Japan's bullet trains). The fastest ones go 300kmph and the slightly slow ones at 270kmph. Traveling on the JR pass gives you the flexibility of getting on any of the 270kmph shinkansens with reserved seating. We took the Hikari Shinkansen, about 2.5 hours to Tokyo Station. The ride was super convenient. I was impressed by the amount of leg space and seat reclining available on board. We armed ourselves with ekiben ( packed lunches to eat on the train ride) for those hunger pangs.
Once at the Tokyo station we made a mad dash for rokurinsha, one of Japan's famous tsukeman ramen places made popular by David Chang's Mind of the Chef. As expected, people had already started lining up. After a 45 minute wait, we were treated to some delicious spicy miso tsukeman ramen and soy marinated egg. I only wish I had a bigger appetite to do justice to the huge portions they served.
Next stop: Grand Hyatt. After slumming it out at airbnbs for the first half of the trip, we were going to Hyatt it up for the rest of the trip. Thanks to Apple and my boyfriends numerous work trips, we were going to be ballers! And I mean some serious diamond member treatment. We were taken to special 10 floor checkin and greeted with a good old bottle of merlot! The first thing I noticed about the room was the view overlooking Mt. Fuji.
After relaxing for a bit we headed out to Tokyo's shinjuku district for the Robot Restaurant. Oh man, that place was a sensory overload! The actual show takes place in the 2nd level basement of a rather tiny restaurant. The decor leading up to the show area was bedazzled with bright neon and white lights, pictures of scantily clad women(of course) and the robots. The 90 minute performance starts with traditional, folk style dancing by the dancers of the company. They throw in some geisha dancing, erotic dancing, you get the picture. They then moved on to a play style item where through storytelling and live action, we saw some pretty neat robots. The most impressive part was to see how the robots maneuvered the really tiny space we were in. This was followed by a robot dance/light show. The finale included a huge parade of all of their robots: rabbits, terminator style dancing robots, robots that look like women, etc. The entire audience was made of foreigners, so you can tell it's a tourist trap. But it was a weirdly entertaining contrast to the subtlety that Japan usually exudes.
We made it in time for the complimentary happy hour at the Grand Hyatt and headed out to dinner. Following my friend's recommendation, we visited Kushimura Yakitori for dinner. Yakitori is basically skewered meat typically made with all kinds of chicken parts, bacon, beef, and veggies that are grilled over charcoal. In my opinion, it's one of their healthier non-carb options. See pics below.
We finally got to check out the spa at the hotel. Couple of things you need to know about Japanese spas. 1. Men and women are segregated. 2. You have to be completely naked and if you're not someone is going to ask you to remove your clothes. As an added bonus, I used their fancy massage chair to give my self a full body massage. This spa was still different from your typical Japanese onsen, but more on that later!
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