On fairly short notice, I was asked to go to Tokyo, Japan for 9 days for a project I needed to help on. It was a whirlwind trip and although I missed my family terribly the trip went by pretty fast, mostly because the work days were long and continued even over the weekend. Needless to say, it was a crazy trip but it was an amazing opportunity both career wise and personally to travel to another country. I was lucky enough to get the chance to travel business case, which for a 14 hour flight is near necessary! It was my first experience with the United business lounge in Chicago as well as flying business class. The food was excellent, the service was great and the seats went completely flat which would have been nice for someone who was able to sleep (I was not so lucky). But, I arrived safely in Japan and started into the craziness.
Our team stayed at The Conrad, which was an amazing hotel that occupied the top floors of the building we were working in as well. For the first 3 days we never left the hotel / office building other than to exit one lobby and enter the other. Those days flew by. The next couple of days weren't quite as long and allowed a few of us to go out to dinner. One night we went to Shimbashi station where we found tons of little places to eat, all which did not speak English nor have English menus and only sat about 20 people. We found two that were excellent and truly enjoyed some yummy local cuisine! One night we also went to a restaurant where we cooked the food on a small grill at the table. That was an interesting meal with steak-tar-tar, beef tongue, Kobe beef and mango ice cream made table side with dry ice. Yummy!
The rest of the trip was pretty much work based until the last night when we were able to go out to a few bars, one in the Rappongi district and then on to the New York Bar on the 52nd floor of the Hyatt where they filmed part of Lost in Translation - so fun!! The next morning brought a few hours before our flight home to where we could walk around the Daiba district for a little shopping and a ride on the world's largest ferris wheel.
The trip home was uneventful thankfully and I was welcomed home by Chad and the kids at the airport - it was so amazing to see them as soon as I walked off the plane - I will remember it always!!
The Conrad:
Shimbashi Station:
SoftBank office building - The Conrad floors are at the top. >10K people come to work in just this building daily - insanity!
View from The Conrad bar:
Rappongi:
View from The New York Bar:
Pictures from the Ferris Wheel tour:
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