While I was on my trip to Asia, I took notes in the little notebook I carry with me everywhere about all the stuff I did so I wouldn’t forget, and it was while doing so on the very first day, er, night there that I realized that due to the time change and dateline, the first day was really the first two days. So here’s how Day 1/2 went:
Mark dropped me off at the airport that morning before he went to work, and I met up with my boss and her family (husband and two daughters) there. Our flight to DC took off fine, on time, no problem. Upon arrival in DC, we were informed that our flight to Tokyo was delayed. By the time our plane actually took off, the total time delayed was 4.5 hours. This was not ideal.
Our original plan, you see, was to organize our time in Japan this way: Fly into Tokyo mid-afternoon, catch the shinkansen to Kyoto, spend two nights there, shink back to Tokyo, spend 3 nights there, then fly from there to Beijing.
The way it actually worked: Fly into Tokyo arriving around 8pm, get to Tokyo Stn at almost 9:30pm with sense of doom and dread, having checked the shinkansen schedule on the Narita Express from the airport and thereby confirming that all shinkansens to Kyoto had departed for the night. Therefore, we have nowhere to stay.
Given that Japan is not the place to be for spur-of-the-moment travel plans and changes, and I was the only person in the group who spoke any Japanese at all, I really didn’t have any idea how we were going to deal with this. First, we got out my 4-years-out-of-date guide book, which said that there was a hotel right outside the Marunouchi side of the station. This was, of course, the other side of the station, and much of the inside of the station appears to be under renovation right now, so we made a somewhat confusing trek all the way over, kids tired and probably somewhat scared that we had nowhere to sleep, and also complaining about having to drag all the luggage.
We exit onto the sidewalk outside the indicated Marunouchi exit and do not see the hotel. There is a lot of construction stuff around, and it is entirely possible that the hotel is gone. We look confused. We decide to consult the officers at the police box right next to us. They speak very minimal English. I speak very minimal Japanese relevant to this situation. A miracle occurs in the form of a passing helpful Japanese man who happens to speak extremely fluent English. He and perhaps as many as five Japanese police officers confer for a while, and we eventually end up booked into a nearby, less expensive hotel.
That such a thing exists near Tokyo Stn is also something of a miracle. We never would have found it on our own. It was called the Hotel Haimaat (High Mart). I am fairly convinced that it is intended for drunken businessmen who miss their last train home. Two of the rooms had bunk beds for two people, and one room, mine was a single. These were possibly the world’s most efficient (read: small) hotel rooms. Well, almost. My boss asked if this was actually a capsule hotel, and I had to assure her that it certainly was not.
The two pictures below show the entirety of my room, minus the bathroom, because I am leaning against its door to take the pictures.
Tininess aside, it was definitely all I needed and more. The bathroom contained extra razors, toothbrushes, and toothpaste, not to mention a perfectly adequate shower/tub (in the Japanese sense) combination, sink, and toilet. I gratefully showered, changed into my pajamas, and slept.
Way to go with the flow! I bet everyone was duly impressed with your handling of that difficult situation (and, by turns, your Japanese — even if you don’t think so).
This is why it always pays to have a guidebook . . . I’m going to blog on that.
Heh, thanks for the praise, but at the time it didn’t feel so much like calmly going with the flow so much as “This is what has happened and now I have to deal with it. I wonder what will happen next?” If that bilingual guy hadn’t wandered by and felt helpful, I have no idea how we would have dealt with it. We’d probably have ended up in the very expensive business hotel actually in the station itself.
Well, in my book, that ability to regroup when plans fall through is what separates the wheat from the chaff
As much as they groaned, I am certain they were thankful to have someone leading them through the crisis.
You can argue that it was simply luck, but you wouldn’t have been where you were — trying to sort options out with the police — if your guidebook hadn’t given you a lead that something (of course, not the something where you ended up) was to be found over there.
And knowing that there’s a hotel in the station would have been a lifesaver too, even if you’d've paid through the nose for it — at least none of you would have ended up on the street! With hindsight, do you think you would have had other, cheaper options? Is there anything you would do differently?
Now do us cheapos a favor and share the name and address of that hotel! Or are you reserving that for your upcoming guest post?
Last question first, I did actually manage to find an online listing of the hotel (which mistransliterates its own name, of course, making it even harder for non-locals to find): Hotel Heimat, and note that while it claims that it takes credit cards, my experience was that they only took cash, as is the case with many smaller hotels in Japan. My single room was Y7035/night, and as I recall the doubles were around Y10000-ish. That is very cheap for that part of town. It’s right across from the Yaesu side of the station.
(And I will do a guest post on money-saving things I found, too.)
Had we been prepared to stay in Tokyo ahead of time that night, with reservations and so on, it might have been possible for us to stay somewhere cheaper. Maybe. But definitely not that close to Tokyo Station. If we had arrived earlier in the day (like, say, when we were supposed to) we would have had more options in finding out about nearby places, because the tourist information center in the station would have been open. But it closes at 5pm (or possibly 6), and we got there at 9:30, so that didn’t help much. Pretty much the best thing we could have done, other than have brought a list of all the emergency hotels near the station ahead of time, like some crazy OCD Boy Scout, was talk to the policemen, because they knew the area like, well, locals, and were far more inclined to help than some person we would have randomly accosted on the street.
It was definitely nice to know that we had the expensive hotel as a back-up, though. The other option my boss suggested was to call the place we were scheduled to stay later in the week and see if they had any rooms that night, too, but I wasn’t too keen on that idea, because that hotel was on the other side of town, about 30 mins by train. So we did have options. I think the one we ended up with was the best, as well as the most economical.
Heimat = home(land) in German — think that might have been intentional?
Huh, I would never have thought of that, but it is entirely possible. It would explain the way they spell it in both the foreign-word syllabary characters and Roman characters. I’m still not sure it makes sense as an obvious hotel name, but that has never really been a requirement. The Japanese certainly have a history with importing German words as well as English ones.
[...] 9, 2008 by Dana Where was I? Oh, yes, our emergency hotel in Tokyo. As I mentioned, though, one of the best things about this [...]
[...] Today’s post comes courtesy of long time reader, first time guest blogger Dana, currently of North Carolina. Dana blogs regularly at From My Wandering Mind and is head chef at Geek Buffet. You’ll find more descriptions of her recent trip to Japan and China starting here. [...]
Hi there,
Loved the blog but I just wanted to point out to you that Haimaat does not mean High Mart but is a derivative of Ma’at the Egiptian Goddess.
The correct explanation is Haima’at, (She who is the defender of the divine truth, wisdom and Justice of the Most High God.
Only a bit of trivia but I thought you may like to know.
It is my name you see.
xx
Interesting to know, Haimaat! Alas, in this case, the hotel in question romanizes their name (incorrectly according to the katakana, which I transcribed as you spell your name) as “Heimat” and they give no indication of what they intend it to mean. Given their decor, if they were inspired by the Egyptian goddess, they aren’t showing it anywhere but their disguised name.