This April, the Shangri-La Hotel, the world-famous hotel chain, opened in a building near Tokyo Station. I always crash at a friend’s place in Tokyo, so I’ve never had reason to pay attention to To…
After spending an hour wandering around the Ijinkan district, I headed back to the Kitano Hotel in time for my reservation. A wedding was in full swing. Watching the young bride and groom and their guests all …
I don’t usually watch much TV, but last month, while I was living in a hotel thanks to a friend’s help, I caught a show picking the best mango pudding in Tokyo. It’s sold at the boutique-and-…
At the top of the Park Hyatt in Shinjuku there’s a steakhouse called the New York Grill and a bar called the New York Bar. Both are beautifully done and the views are great, but the word is that the New …
Now the main course starts coming out. The shabu-shabu pot From the side Maybe because it’s a hotel restaurant, the design and service are top-notch. Out came Yonezawa beef, famous as a brand-name wagy…
When you travel you get curious about the hotels in the area, but when you live in a city for a long time you stop caring what hotels there are around town. Lately, since I started doing restaurant reviews, I&…
After a good meal at Kitazawa Club, I was about to head to a café nearby when my friend said we had some time, so why not go somewhere nice. When a friend puts it like that, what can you do? I took us to the b…
I bought a 5-megapixel phone but hadn’t really been making good use of it. The main reason is that the picture quality was below what I’d hoped for, but it’s still fine for keeping a simple r…
For our 5-day, 4-night trip to Bali we stayed at the Grand Hyatt in Nusa Dua. I wouldn’t go so far as to call it the best-equipped hotel in Bali, but it’s probably the biggest. The weather was grea…
On the morning of day two I met up with a friend who lives in Tokyo, for the first time in ages. We were both so busy that morning was the only time we could meet, so we decided to drop into a hotel nearby and…
On the morning of day three we had breakfast at the Westin. I’d picked up a tip that the Westin’s breakfast buffet was a bit better, so we gave it a try, but it was about the same level. This is a …
The beach at dusk on day one. It was raining, so I didn’t expect much in the way of sightseeing, but it soon cleared up. The person in the photo has nothing to do with me. The beach around 7 a.m. on day…