I’m with you on the card games, though. We do have lots of packs of cards there, but I mostly remember them getting used for Solitaire or to build houses of cards as tall as possible.

This year we did by a new jigsaw puzzle, and my mom has installed a huge book of Sudoku puzzles, but that’s about as wild as it gets.

I sometimes think I’m perceived as a little antisocial when I go off to read. They are not anti-reading, and in fact some are avid readers, but it doesn’t seem to be the delightful vacation activity for others (except maybe my son and stepdaughter) that it is for me.

(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.

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?