We had breakfast at the hotel and headed out for our flight north to Tokyo. The sky was absolutely clear and I got a good photo of the snow capped Mount Fuji that is so important to the Japanese.
Upon arriving I got in taxi and took our luggage to the Royal Park Shiodome Tower Hotel to check in. It is very hard to find anyplace in Tokyo. There is no rhyme or reason to the addresses. Building numbering is not consecutive and many streets have no name at all. My cab had GPS in it like most cabs yet the cab driver couldn’t find the hotel. He had to stop twice to ask other cab drivers where it was, and then delivered me to the wrong hotel. Eventually we got to out hotel. It has a computer and Internet in the room so I am happy. It is located near the Ginza and lots of shopping. Cathy and fellow shoppers grabbed a separate cab and headed directly to Nuno’s.
After checking in I braved the subway system and made my way to Nuno to meet Cathy. Nuno is a great textile store that sells fabric and finished clothing. In addition they will custom make clothing. I am having a shirt made from fabric we chose it will probably arrive in the states in a month or so.
We then went to the Mori Art Museum. It is on the 52nd floor of the Mori Building. It is a spectacular space, but it was in between shows so it was closed. They do have a walk around the outside of the building called City View where you gaze out on the unending Tokyo spectacular skyline. Think of the density of New York City, spread over the area of Los Angeles. 30 Million people live here.
We then went to the Grand Hyatt and had drinks.
We had asked Betty in Okinawa what restaurant she would recommend. She recommended Kiraku. We decided to go there. Of course our Cab driver couldn’t find it, even with his GPS. I eventually suggested he call the restaurant for detail directions. He needed to do that twice. Eventually we drove down the street and the manger of the restaurant was at curbside flagging us down to tell us we were at the right spot.
The restaurant is in conjunction with small gallery that sells pottery and other things. The shows at the gallery change quite often.
Nothing I saw could do justice to the dinner we had. It was the consensus of the group it was the most elegant dinner we had ever had! To start they brought a tray of Sake Glasses and you got to choose the one that you wanted for the night. The sake was served in a large ceramic bowl that you would pour into your selected cup. We ordered 3 bottles of sake in the course of the night and each time they served the sake in a different ceramic bowl. It was course after course of the most delicious fish, rice, and vegetables and sauces. Each course would be served on a large hand crafted bowl or tray to be shared by two people. Each separate part of each course was then in a separate ceramic bowl. No two bowls were alike, they were all beautiful. The food it self was delicious. We were so blown away that we made reservations to return on Wed. night where they promised us the chief would make a completely different multi course dinner. The entire dinner came to $120 per person, which by Tokyo standards and great dinner standards is reasonable especially considering we had 3 bottles of Sake!
The manager invited us to come early on Wed. night because they are changing the gallery inventory and having an opening party. We will try to attend.
Taxi home and to bed!
Here is Kiraku's web address, if you are ever in Tokyo, you now know one great restaurant to go to!
http://www.spgim.com/kiraku/home/index.html
1 comment:
Interesting to know.
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