Shinjuku Park Hotel Review

When we chose this hotel, first thing we looked up is location, and breakfirst. Tokyo keeps well organized subway system. And Shinjuku is the center of subway system with various fashion street and governement buildings. But it was hard to get family room in Japan. May no rooms be available in Japan for family except Walt Disney. So, we decided to reserve two rooms.

Rooms are very clean but we smelled smoke(you must know Japan still allow smoking in the building). Since we have children, I asked manager to change rooms. He suggested clean the rooms instead due to no rooms available. After few hours when we backed, we could not smell smoke. They did well job (I don't know how they clean the room). But later, we can still smell smoke in the whole floor.

Everything in the room is very clean and available. There is hot and cold water in the corner of floor (you can have quick noddle in the room). You can controll all the light in the center small box.

Bath room is small but make you feel great (every detail thought & treatment were there).

I thouht it was computer monitor but it was TV.

Location of hotel is perfect. There is a city bus station nearby (5-10 minutes from hotel)- we used this station for Disney visit. And Subway station is located nearby 10 minutes as well.

Breakfirst was so great. We still have same breakfirst after back from Japan.

I still wish this hotel may have family room and no smoking in the building. Everything was perfect. Price, Location, Quality, Convenient.. I love this hotel.

Site view at night in Shinjuku, Tokyo

We stay the hotel located nearby Shinjuku. Shinjuku is a manjor commercial and administrative center(include Metropolitan Government Building). But more ever, I love this place because Shinjuku is the center of Tokyo subway system and bus station. You can visit any place come from Shinjuku.

On the way of people back from their works, young musician started playing his music and sing a song. His voice came through people's heart and tried to hold people's shoe. It's like seasons to this gray busy city. You could enjoy the shopping as well. Surrounding Shinjuku Station are department stores, electronic and camera shops, cinemas, resturants(little bit expensive) and animation character shops.

Right in front of subway station gate, there is Dougnut & coffee shop. Even time was 9pm, as you can see in the photo, many people was still in the line. When time is close to shut down, one person started to distribute number paper. It was number in line so that people can go back to home and come back tomorrow! It was such impressed sight that I'v never seen before.

Shops close at 10 pm. Once most of shop close, then only small restaurant still opened and called late customers.
In fact, there are nothing to much things to do after 1o pm. So, it's better to go back to hotel.

Meiji Shrine, Tokyo, in Japan Oct.2007

Final destination of today is Meiji Shrine(明治神宮). We again use subway train. Good route to visit there is to take off from Harajuku station.

I looked up the internet to find out easy way to go and below is the detail that I found.
"Meiji-Jingūmae Station (明治神宮前駅, Meiji-Jingūmae eki?) is a Tokyo Metro station on the Chiyoda Line and the Fukutoshin Line located in Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan. The station opened on 20 October 1972 on the Chiyoda Line. The Fukutoshin Line station opened on 14 June 2008.
Harajuku Station on the Yamanote Line is immediately adjacent to Meiji-Jingūmae Station and is marked as an interchange on most route maps, although there is no physical connection between the two stations."

Like I explained, visiting Tokyo is very exciting. To me, subway train bring me any place that I want to go. You'll never have chance to lost direction or hotel if you are good at how to use subway in Tokyo. There were already so many people on the street and we simply notice that this is one of famous fashion street as well (if you have child, you must have careful). It was like two wave on the street. forward direction of people and backward direction of people. You cannot stop in the middle of these wave. You must take either one. Beside looking at people would make you interesting. So, if you visited Harajuku, you will meet four famous stuffs. One is Meiji Shrine, Second is animation costume. And third is fashion street. The last one is people.

Right in front of Meiji Shrine gate, young girls were gather together from all over the country. They came to the place with dress of animation or game costume. When I got there they were having late lunch by groups. To me, it was hard to understand but they thought themselves like kinds of fashion modelers.

Whenever visitors tried to take photos they turned around and gave special guesture from that animation or game. Their makeup was so thick and little bit dark colors on the eyes. They seemed to be like sick... Anyway they are young and many days to learn, live, and experience.

They could be better look up bright side of world or at least costume... I took photo one girl who was wearing suny sky colors. I felt great to see her.

Meiji Shrine... It was totally different feeling befor you entered the gate and after. From the gate to the temple, Japanese people were wearing full dress and ladies and girls were wearing traditional clothes called Kimono. The Japanese word kimono actually means "clothing" but the word is used primarily to refer to garments.

A kimono's sash indicated the social class of its wearer. If you saw small girls wearing kimono, you can't take off your eyes on them. It was really so cute!!

One interesting thing was wedding ceremony. When I visited, there were couple to get married. First they went in front-left side building with a long line (maybe they families and friends) then later they changed their clothes with modern style. It was quite interesting view.

On the way back to the station, we lost the way! In the Meiji, there are forest in the middle of gate and buildings, and we lost the way. After 1.5 hour's walking, we finally found the way out. I think that there were no way back to correct if you made mistake at first conjunction. So, next time if you have chance to visit, check your route out from main center building. After long walking, we were so tired. We back to hotel and have dinner at first floor of hotel. The restuarant was small but old chef was so greeting us and so kind. Food price was little expensive but it was worth to satisfied our stomach.

Visit Ghibli-museum, Mitaka in Tokyo, Oct27,2007

Ghibli museum....

My daughter loves animation. Specially many animations made by Hayao Miyazaki.
This museum is madeby him. You can taste all his effort, love, and small of his piece by piece works. If you wan to be animator, this is the place you should visit!!

Easy wasy to go Mitaka is using subway. Subway in Japan is most favorate tranportation for foreigners. Everything is easy to use, easy to transfer, and easy to understand..they symbolized well from buying ticket and exit from station.

People were so kind. When we lost way out from the Mitaka station, suddenly high school student came to us and guided us to the right exits. He brought us to the exit even his direction was opposite. Even he could not speak English at all, he gave us body- language to explain how to get there.

From the station to go Ghibli, you need to use bus. To use the bus, you must buy ticket nearby bus stop area. When yellow cute bus arrived, it is easy to identify the bus(Animation covered bus).

In Ghibli, Camera was not allowed to bring in. Only picture you can take is outside view from the distance at gate. You can see Robot in the roof. This robot was in the animation called " Laputa: Castle in the sky).

Visit Tokyo October26, Japan

Disney at Tokyo...

When I visited Disney, it was cloudy and even working day, there were so many people. I was in Disney at Orlando in Florida as well, in Tokyo, looked like smaller than US but many people more than Orlando which means you have to wait in long line.

One thing parade, I prefer the parade at US. Here sound was very loud and parade was short than I expected. May children love but as you can see in the picture, less children you can find. It might be better idea, if they have saperate parade for young or middle age people...

I would like to recommend to take this cruise first. You can see overall of near places and give you idea which place would be good to visit in order. Besides, you don't have to wait long line for this one. It's best choice if you don't know which place to go or do not want to be in a long line as well.

I took some video clip....