Day Seven: Transfer to Shibuya
Posted by Trejkaz Sat, 30 Sep 2006 06:40:05 GMT
On day seven, most of the americans returned home, while some stayed in the hotel. However, I had opted to stay in a different hotel which had a somewhat better reputation.
Slept in, checked out (only had to pay for one day of Pay TV in the hotel even though I used it on three days… presumably an error on their part.) Took a cab (~¥3,500) to Shibuya Excel Hotel Tokyu. The excessive cab fare is because the cabs all have doilies on the seats so you pay a doily tax.
Checked my baggage, but check-in time is 14:00 and I got there around 11:00. Walked around for an hour or so but the backpack is packed full so it isn’t a comfortable way to waste time. I’m currently sitting on a bench outside Starbucks in the Mark City Building writing this part of the weblog post. There is no wireless hotspot here, or at least, none that I’ll be able to get into. I see the SSID “0033” again which is the same as the one in the hotel which didn’t even work. And indeed, on trying to connect, it has an error again. Every single hotspot in this city is broken, I swear. They are all run by NTT, the Japanese equivalent of Telstra. This goes a long way toward explaining the problem.
To add insult to injury, the laptop battery was running out so I had to stop writing the entry. So I found some other way to pass a couple of hours, mainly sitting around watching people walk by.
The new hotel kicks some serious butt:
- It has 9 megabit (presumably it’s 10 megabit, but the speed test said 9 so I’ll go with that) Internet access, which is free (included in the price of the room, I checked.)
- It has enough power outlets to actually plug in everything I need to recharge!
- It’s practically directly on top of Shibuya station (the hotel lobby is floor 5, the station is floor 1.)
- It has glass elevators! Well, two out of the four elevators are glass. I have taken a video out of one of them, but it isn’t the ideal one. If I ever get in the elevator in the corner directly facing the infamous intersection, then I’ll take videos of it going up and down. :-)
- It already has vending machines on every floor, and the vending machine prices are the same as the convenience stores instead of elevated to hotel prices.
The only complaint I have is that my view of the crossing could be better. It looks like the rooms closer to the crossing are the more expensive rooms (they are bigger on the floor map.) Figures.
I’ve already downloaded and watched episode 11 of Welcome to the NHK! and downloaded but not yet watched episode 12 (that can come some time when I truly have nothing to do, like early hours of the morning or really late hours at night.) The show is getting better and better still.
I spent much of the afternoon catching up on posting blog entries as you already know. I also mapped out a few places to go later at night but most of the places I wanted to go were closed to gaijin. ;-)
Eventually went to bed at around 02:30 the next morning. Next day might be shopping again, but I’ll have to do something at night since it’s Saturday. How about ageHa?