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ellenkushnerDelighted to say that ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
deliasherman & I arrived in Japan after a truly celestial (pardon the pun - it's 3 a.m. in Yokohama) trip west in ANA Business Class, a 14-hour flight which included one of the best Japanese meals I've ever eaten, plus too many excellent movies (including a Japanese one called "The Haunted Samurai" which I heartily recommend - combines the best of folktale/fantasy with a sharp, keen look at the end of an era) and a fine view of Alaskan glaciers (which I always look forward to, and refuse to go to sleep until I've seen, which is a shame as it's nearly 7 hours into the flight, but who can sleep with all that entertainment?).
Picked up our cell phones at Narita Airport, bought some provisions & took 90-minute train ride to Yokohama, got cab to hotel... 24 hours door-to-door exactly. Then I went out to forage for food to store in our mini-bar, while Delia unpacked us. 7-Eleven here is a Way of Life.
The Pan Pacific is a stellar hotel - the kind we've never stayed in before in Japan, right out of "Lost in Translation," complete with a huge bar/restaurant with a "Treasure Island" theme, a whole lamb roasting on a spit, and fish soup bubbling in a cauldron at the serving station . . . we are getting convention rates, so it's quite a bargain. Extras include bathroom loofah mits, and fine cotton nightshirts. Service here is also a way of life: when I called the front desk to ask if there were an ice machine on our floor, they said, "Yes, it is opposite Room #---" - saving me the need to stomp up and down the corridor wtih my ice bucket, which is good, since it was to ice my poor heel, which is acting up again, dammit.
Sleeping is erratic, but who cares? We have an entire model city on Yokohama Bay out our window, complete with the world's largest ferris wheel, all lit up, with an enormous digital clock read-out in the middle. So we should always know what time it is. (It's called "Minato Mirai" and you can find pictures on the web, in case you think I'm making it up. Because I'm really not. )
It is pretty hot here, and so humid, even at night, that if you could wring out the air like a dishtowel you could make tea with what you get.
Hope everyone's well and enjoying life! It is just great - and weirdly relaxing - to be back on the road again (and back here) - makes all the rather stressful days of preparation seem very worth it, something I tend to lose track of when I'm in the middle of them.
As in - right before we left NYC, while I was on the subway to the dr's I thought of and had every intention of coming home and posting the following:
I cried because I had painful plantar fasciitis in my heel and an oozing running sore from the surgery on my toe, until I met a man who had had a giant tree total his car --
Oh, wait a minute.
I think I'll go to Japan now.
I'm so glad I did.
deliasherman & I arrived in Japan after a truly celestial (pardon the pun - it's 3 a.m. in Yokohama) trip west in ANA Business Class, a 14-hour flight which included one of the best Japanese meals I've ever eaten, plus too many excellent movies (including a Japanese one called "The Haunted Samurai" which I heartily recommend - combines the best of folktale/fantasy with a sharp, keen look at the end of an era) and a fine view of Alaskan glaciers (which I always look forward to, and refuse to go to sleep until I've seen, which is a shame as it's nearly 7 hours into the flight, but who can sleep with all that entertainment?). Picked up our cell phones at Narita Airport, bought some provisions & took 90-minute train ride to Yokohama, got cab to hotel... 24 hours door-to-door exactly. Then I went out to forage for food to store in our mini-bar, while Delia unpacked us. 7-Eleven here is a Way of Life.
The Pan Pacific is a stellar hotel - the kind we've never stayed in before in Japan, right out of "Lost in Translation," complete with a huge bar/restaurant with a "Treasure Island" theme, a whole lamb roasting on a spit, and fish soup bubbling in a cauldron at the serving station . . . we are getting convention rates, so it's quite a bargain. Extras include bathroom loofah mits, and fine cotton nightshirts. Service here is also a way of life: when I called the front desk to ask if there were an ice machine on our floor, they said, "Yes, it is opposite Room #---" - saving me the need to stomp up and down the corridor wtih my ice bucket, which is good, since it was to ice my poor heel, which is acting up again, dammit.
Sleeping is erratic, but who cares? We have an entire model city on Yokohama Bay out our window, complete with the world's largest ferris wheel, all lit up, with an enormous digital clock read-out in the middle. So we should always know what time it is. (It's called "Minato Mirai" and you can find pictures on the web, in case you think I'm making it up. Because I'm really not. )
It is pretty hot here, and so humid, even at night, that if you could wring out the air like a dishtowel you could make tea with what you get.
Hope everyone's well and enjoying life! It is just great - and weirdly relaxing - to be back on the road again (and back here) - makes all the rather stressful days of preparation seem very worth it, something I tend to lose track of when I'm in the middle of them.
As in - right before we left NYC, while I was on the subway to the dr's I thought of and had every intention of coming home and posting the following:
I cried because I had painful plantar fasciitis in my heel and an oozing running sore from the surgery on my toe, until I met a man who had had a giant tree total his car --
Oh, wait a minute.
I think I'll go to Japan now.
I'm so glad I did.
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no subject
Date: 2007-08-29 07:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-29 08:45 am (UTC)I must get over to Japan this year - I've been meaning to go for forever. I don't suppose you good people will be taking in Thailand in your travels?
In the even that you should happen to find yourselves in The Kingdom of Thailand, I'd love to whisk you out for dinner. Or indeed cocktails. (Or a movie! OMG, they have the most INSANELY luxurious cinemas in the history of, er, well, my own experience of movie theatres. Well worth a visit.)
Oh - er, hi, by the way. I'm a friend of Roz's, and I read Swordspoint way the hell back when, and again more recently when The Fall of the Kings was issued (and it's still lovely, as is the latter - Go Team You). Anyway, yes, thus the friending and perusing-of-journal.
Have fun in Japan!
no subject
Date: 2007-08-29 08:47 am (UTC)(Apparently typing isn't my best thing after a long day of teaching.)
no subject
Date: 2007-08-29 12:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-29 01:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-08-29 01:05 pm (UTC)We took the train down to Yokohama this morning and are now comfortably ensconced in the InterContinental. We've been enjoying the same kind of fabulous accomodations and service you describe, and while we don't have a view of the big clock, our room does have a gorgeous view of the bay.
I am loving Yokohama!