Skipping Town

We stayed in some wonderful places in Japan, and I thought it’d be nice to gather descriptions and pictures in one post. Tokyo—Oakwood Apartments Shinjuku Our first place of lodging was the Oakwood Apartments Shinjuku in Tokyo, which are small efficiency apartments. This place was amazing—though it’s geared toward longer-term travelers, it’s open to short-term stays as well; we stayed for four nights. The website provides excellent written directions on how to get from the Shinjuku metro stop to the apartment building, complete with pictures of landmarks you’ll see as you walk. It was an easy 5-7 minute walk from Shinjuku station. The building is quite nice—a nice lobby with a 24-hour front desk (very helpful and English-speaking), a comfortable lounge, and computers with internet service in the quiet lower-level lounge. We didn’t get to make much use of the Sky Lounge, a top-floor lounge where you help yourself to a drink, but we did go up to enjoy the amazing view. Our room had a sma...

(Written on Friday, posted on Saturday) It poured again in Nikko today. We woke early and began the morning with a yoga class with a Zen Buddhist monk; the monk chanted at the end of the class during a brief meditation, while the rain kept pouring down outside. (Andrew had been resistant to the class, until it became clear that I was the only one in the lodge who had signed up; being the nice husband that he is, he agreed to go with me.) After breakfast, we took a brief walk in the rain to "Nikko beer," which Andrew had hoped would involve a brewery tour; but there were just a few things for sale in the shop. The walk was very moody; fog was settling over the mountaintops, and wet leaves were matted along the roads and sidewalks. It was perfectly silent except for the raindrops in the trees. We headed to the train station around eleven; the mountains we spotted in the distance were snow-capped. We saw a white loon lightly stepping its way across a small river. Along the way w...

(Written on Thursday; posted on Saturday) It was another early day. We left the Oakwood Apartments around 6am and headed to the train station to catch our train to Nikko. We didn’t need to leave that early--our train wasn’t leaving until 8:10--but our friend Atsh told us that it was not a good idea to get on the subway with our suitcases during rush hour. He told us that it’s not uncommon for people to actually be separated from their suitcases in the crush of people--and it’s also not uncommon to see "floaters," people whose feet actually don’t touch the ground because they’re crammed in so tightly. It seemed prudent to leave a bit early. As we waited for the train to arrive, we bought cans of coffee from a vending machine on the platform; our favorite, the Georgia brand cafÈ crËme, which has a can that reads "Little gift for you," was not available; so we chose Wonda brand cafÈ au lait, which promised a perfect "coexistence of roasted coffee and roasted milk...