{"id":12005,"date":"2026-11-09T03:39:28","date_gmt":"2026-11-09T11:39:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/?p=12005"},"modified":"2026-11-09T03:39:28","modified_gmt":"2026-11-09T11:39:28","slug":"japan-fall-2026-day-20-back-to-tokyo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/?p=12005","title":{"rendered":"Japan Fall 2026: Day 20 (back to Tokyo)"},"content":{"rendered":"

I started out the day at the Global View hotel right across from Niigata station. I stayed here before and I thought it was mostly stylish and not that great. The biggest problem is the tiny showers in the room. I think they want you to use the big bath in the basement which is pretty nice but the water is very hot. Anyway, there\u2019s still some quirks like I had to figure out where the pajamas are. They\u2019re in the dimly lit lobby and they\u2019re dark colored. If you want a razor you have to buy an \u201camenity kit\u201d for \u00a5300 which isn\u2019t that bad.<\/p>\n

Anyway, the breakfast wasn\u2019t bad. I think I liked it better at the rattier Daiichi Hotel. They even had a pancake-making robot!<\/p>\n

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The view from the breakfast place is pretty good too. You can see the station across the way and understand why it only took me about 12 minutes to get from my room to the Shinkanen.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

I did the \u201ctransfer at Omiya\u201d route where I got off way before I hit Tokyo proper and got on a local train for Shinjuku. I\u2019ve done it before and it\u2019s probably easier than going all the way into Ueno or Tokyo and taking a train across town.<\/p>\n

I bought a donut on the way through the station and then left my bags at the hotel. They told me I had a package waiting for me (gifts from one of the Kawasaki\u2019s). I stood outside the hotel and ate the excellent custard donut.<\/p>\n

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I wandered around Shinjuku for a bit. It\u2019s cold and rainy again and I decided just to sit in a coffee shop and wait for check-in time. I went to Hoshino Coffee and had a club sandwich for lunch. It was good and the coffee there is good too. People just sit in coffee shops to kill time so I did the same.<\/p>\n

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I had to pick up a bag from a karaoke box where I\u2019d left my bag using Bounce luggage storage app. I checked in and they had me sign for a box. I thought it was smaller than usual and was happy about that until I realized this box came from a different family friend and now I had two boxes to take back to the US!<\/p>\n

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Then I sat in my room watching YouTube. Mostly videos of people who live in Japan. Hahaha<\/p>\n

I couldn\u2019t decide where to eat so I cruised around Google maps for a bit until I found a place that had hamburg steak. It\u2019s an old looking place in underground level between subway stations (it\u2019s a mall, but underground) and I tried it out. As soon as I ordered the \u201cBambi Set\u201d\u201d (the store is called Bambi) I saw one of the cooks playing pattycake with the hamburger meat. Freshly formed patty! The fried shrimp and crab croquette had a light taste like the oil was brand new. The tartar sauce and demiglace sauce tasted like they were made in-house. It was all very good! I guess that\u2019s why there was a steady stream of customers. Not crowded but good.<\/p>\n

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Then it was off to Hands to see if I could find the \u201chair water\u201d my sister asked for. I also figured out that I could pay even more for Pocari Sweat than I do now and a Hands app on the US app store that will allow me to collect points that will expire before I figure out what to do with them. (It\u2019s really inconvenient that Tokyu Hands is now just called Hands.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I started out the day at the Global View hotel right across from Niigata station. I stayed here before and I thought it was mostly stylish and not that great. The biggest problem is the tiny showers in the room. I think they want you to use the big bath in the basement which is pretty nice but the water is very hot. Anyway, there\u2019s still some quirks like I had to figure out where the pajamas are. They\u2019re in the dimly lit lobby and they\u2019re dark colored. If you want a razor you have to buy an \u201camenity kit\u201d for \u00a5300 which isn\u2019t that bad. Anyway, the breakfast wasn\u2019t … Continue reading Japan Fall 2026: Day 20 (back to Tokyo)<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12005","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-japan"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12005","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12005"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12005\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12006,"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12005\/revisions\/12006"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12005"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12005"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.i8u.org\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12005"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}