Todd Takes Tokyo

My friend Scott had to go to Shanghai on business and was able to squeeze in 4 nights in Japan. Unfortunately 4 nights just wasn't enough to come out to Hamamatsu, so we had to meet up in Tokyo. Luckily it was a big holiday here, Golden Week, so I was completely free to go down to meet with him.

A little while ago, I had heard from a student of mine there was a new bus that runs from Hamamatsu Station to Shinjuku in the heart of Tokyo. The hotel that Scott had booked just so happens to be in Shinjuku as well, so I decided to save some money and bus it to the big T(only costs about 3700 yen-- about half the Shinkansen fare).As you can see from the header picture, Fuji was clear and there was a great view from one of the rest stops.

I left really early to ensure that I could met up with Scott in the early afternoon at the hotel, the Keio Plaza hotel. While walking around I was surprised by the line up for this new Krispy Kream donut shop in Shinuku. The lineup wrapped around in front and continued across the bridge to the right.
I got pretty tired of walking around and headed to the hotel around 1 pm. I hadn't checked his flight status, so missed the fact that his flight was slightly delayed- that coupled with the fact that he missed his first shuttle bus to the hotel meant I waited about 3 hours in the hotel lobby. One of the staff member noticed I was waiting a long time and the hotel manager offered to help me quite enthusiastically, he was a pretty funny guy. While I was talking to him, Scotty finally showed up.
After Scotty quickly checked his e-mail we hooked up with his high school buddy Makoto and ate all sorts of goodies like Horse and chicken liver and other staples of Izakaya food. We took a little look at the night scene around Shinjuku and called it an early evening.