Well just been woken up early by my first earth tremor here. Will ask Dave later if he also noticed it. It was strong enough that you could hear fittings creaking, but it was still only a mild shock.

Well we have now arrived in Japan. The flight was a full one, with a poor (for me) selection of movies, but aside from that it was fine. Cherry blossom season has hit Tokyo with the result that looking out of the plane’s window while landing we just saw a sea of light pink blossom.

We just missed one train in to Tokyo, so had to wait an hour. The fact that the only place to spend time was a Starbucks alas sums up the world we live in. The journey in was quick and efficient. We stayed on the train for 1 stop beyond Tokyo’s main station – taking us straight to Shinjuku – rather useful. The map for the hotel was not bad and the one time we had to head to a police koban (a cross between a small station and a police box) for directions, by the time we got there we could see the hotel. The rooms are small, but clean, though the bed is the only place large enough to open my case. There is no ‘Net connection (oh how I have to suffer), though with a wireless scan I did briefly pick up some one’s unprotected router, not long enough to abuse it though. Net result is that I’m typing this up to take to a cyber cafe – not bringing a pen drive with me is going to be a pain with transfering files – though this is to be rectified at Akihabara.

First meal over here would not have been possible in the UK. We found a small place doing set meals with grilled meats (mine was bacon, Dave’d was pork), along side a bowl of clear oxtail broth, some pickels, and some barley rice on to which you pour a raw beaten egg with some slivers of seaweed. It was very nice, though I know many who would have just left the egg. This was washed down with our first beer over here – a bad idea at the time considering how tired we were.

In the evening we were both still tired – as neither of us can sleep on planes, so the plan was to just have a walk towards Shinjuku station then to get some food. This turned in to a walk followed by a sit down at a cafe while watching the world go by as we were not yet hungry. Once we did move off we were hit by the problem that the Japanese tend to eat earlier than us in the evening, resulting in some interesting looking places being closed, but we still found a decent noodle bar to settle down in – oishii.

A final walk before heading back to the hotel found us in a couple of games arcades. The Taiko drum game was a tad boring after a while, not helped by the long instructions neither of us could understand. We had a try at a pitching/baseball alley on top of another arcade, god we sucked but it was fun. It was at this one that we found an air guitar game, silly fun, but a nice end to a tiring day.

Well here I am, this time travelling with a friend, Dave, about to embark on my next adventure, Japan, Land of the Rising Sun.

BA now fly out of Terminal 1 at Heathrow, and you can tell. This place used to be dire, now it’s quite pleasant, just a shame my membership rating is too low to get in to the BA Exec club lounge.

Time to departure ~70 minutes.

The trip to the airport was pretty uneventful. There was a notice in the bus saying a tip for the driver would be nice, but he was demanding for it.

Decided to upgrade to World Traveler Plus (cattle plus) as there’s a deal at JFK where it only costs $250. Well worth it in my mind.

Arrived over 3 hours early, as recommended. 10 minutes later my bag was checked in and I had purchased the upgrade, so I went to security, where the time problem is. 5 minutes later I’m beyond there looking to kill almsot 3 hours. Couldn;’ find a wireless spot (though it would probably have been T-Mobile and thus chargeable), so I watched an episode and a half of Twin Spica, split up by a game of Age of Empires 2.

The flight was pretty uneventful, and now I’m bak, tired, but not sure about hitting the sack unless it’s jsut for a few hours, else I’ll not sleep tonight.

Took me almsot an hour to walk up there (actually it was only about 45 minutes), but I went to Carnegy’s Deli for lunch. Got there just in time as well, about midday, I managed to get a table straight away.

When I left about half an hour or so later, having half consumed a Woody Allan inspired sandwich (think it was called a Broadway – half and half brisket and corned beef), the queue went outside and half way down the block.

Noty a cheap lunch, the sandwich was probably good value at $15 if I had managed it (there’s a $3 surchase if you share), but $8 for a small coffee was a rip off.

I went down to reception to book a shuttle to the airport (I could equally have skipped out for breakfast), came back up to find that despite having about 75+ minutes till I need to check out, my electronic door key no longer worked.

I hope I can find some online review sites so I may express my opinions.

For some reason I thought I had a 8 p.m. flight, meaning leaving the hotel at ~3.30. Checked when I got up and it is an 18:30 flight, need to be there by 15:30, which means leaving here by 2. Not sure if I have enough time now to head up to Carnegies to eat. Might head south tro Union Sqaure and eat round there intead.

My views on the hotel ? Not good. I most certainly will not be staying here again.

Initial impressions were good. Nice looking lobby with friendly staff. The room was small but cozy. Also the hotel was just north of Madisson Square, so well located (though alas too far from Central Park).

The reality. The windows to the room are single pane wooden affairs which look like they are starting to rot. There is always a cold (icy at night) breeze coming through them, and they keep out no noise. The bed was comfortable, however as a partial insomniac it was hard getting to sleep, and once woken by noise outside (about 7 a.m. on both mornings) back to sleep it was impossible to get again.

The room facilities were really poor (considering it is a nearly new hotel). There were no tea/coffee making facilities, the bathroom was very small, the shower was tempramental (see my previous edit about scalding hot water suddenly coming from the cold supply), making it unusuable, and the toilet was in such a tight corner you had to be a contorsionist to use it. There was a safe, but it was so high up I had to use a chair to check I had removed everything from it. There was a small coffee table and a pair of chairs provided, however the cponstant draft made for a chilly experience using them.

The hotel’s restaurant is none existent. For breakfast I had to hit a deli round the corner.

The staff proved to be a mixed bunch. For some things, like fixing the TV remote they were helpful, foir others such as where to get stamps from, or postage, they were clueless.

I’m not sure on whether to blame the hotel for the really really poor wireless ‘Net connection or not. It is not advertised on their website, but the reality is the service is truly poor. I did get through to the provider’s customer support and their view was to move the laptop to the reception. I should ahve just camped out in the nearest Starbucks instead.

Was recommended this place by Rob, who due to work could not make it to Manhatten this evening. It’s the top rated Italian restaurant in Little Italy in the Zagat survey :-
Il Palazzo Food rated 24 for food.

Little Italy 151 Mulberry St. (bet. Grand & Hester Sts.) New York, NY, 10013 (212) 343-7000

A “solid performer in an ever-shrinking market” describes this Mulberry Street Italian that’s one of the “best on the block”, offering cooking that’s “better than grandma’s” plus “attentive”, “thought-the-waiter-was-going-to-feed-me” service; the “beautiful”, newly glassed-in garden might explain the slightly “higher-than-average cost.”

Started with a starter portion of pasta – spaghetti tossed in a tomato, basil and garlic sauce. It was very nice though it was spaghettini (thinner).

Main course. Saltimbocca. Not sure if this is the American style of it, since most Italian restaurant dishes are interpretations, but it was not rolls of veal with proscuito and sage leaves, intead it was flat. It was, however, very very nice, and a large portion as well. I had ordered a vegetable dish, not realising it already came with vegetables. Needless to say I was barely able to touch the spinach.

For a sweet I went with Rob’s recommendation of the Tirramasu. This was excellent and well worth it.

Service was great – European in style, not the overly fussy and attentive American style I hate. Over all – well worth the taxi rides to and from Little Italy, I would strongly consider going back there next time.

If I ever meet the head of Starbucks UK I must ask him one thing. How come it costs us almost twice as much to buy their coffee and snacks in the UK as the US. Yes as per normal is looks like they have done a straight dollar->stirling conversion. Thus in the UK it would cost me £1.95 for a tall (small sixed) Cafe Americano and 95p for a biscotti. Here it just cost me $2 and 95c respectively. With the dollar being worth not much more than 50p, that meant my drink and snack cost me the grand total of about £1.50.