Mansion Hunting in Shintoshin

Wednesday, February 7, 2007

Our bodies still haven’t adjusted to Okinawa time so we wake at 5:00 A.M. and are the first ones downstairs for breakfast in our Super Hotel. An entire wall in the dining area is lined with drink vending machines and one of the machines is programmed to offer the hotel guests free coffee and tea between the hours of 7:00 A.M. and 9:00 A.M. John makes a beeline for the machine and pushes the icon for the hot milk coffee. A cold breakfast buffet is arranged along the side counter plus hot rice and miso soup. There are platters of cold tamago, cold seaweed mixed with rice noodles and vegetables and what I think is a stir fry bamboo dish, also cold. There are triangles of tuna and egg sandwiches with the crusts cut off and small square pieces of teriyaki duck or chicken. A sliced roll of mystery meat and vegetable pate is yet another option. Three small dishes hold colorfully dyed pickled vegetables and on the shelf above are saran wrapped “croissants” and butter and jam. John eats several pieces of tamago (a sweet cold egg omelet) and gorges on the overly processed croissants which he stuffs with jam and butter. This morning’s breakfast and the dining room is far removed from the breakfast buffets at hotels back home which in my opinion also leave much to be desired. A dozen tables are arranged grid like in the dining area. They are more like 4 person desks. Each “desk” has a white plastic vertical partition visually dividing the diners on one side of the table from the diners on the other side. The hotels guests begin to arrive. They are mostly Japanese business men wearing crisp white shirts and ties. Each picks up a plastic tray, configured somewhat like a T.V. dinner tray with several partitions for each choice of food. Each fills their tray and then sits facing the blank partition to eat breakfast in silence. No one is overweight except for Art and me.

We take a long morning walk through the Shintoshin district. Shintoshin is a new upscale district with many new hotels, shopping malls and restaurants. John rides his skate board and we stop in at a sporting store to look at bicycles for John and me. The sky is bright blue, the temperature in the mid 70’s. At noon we choose a restaurant from the plastic food display in the window. Inside we order from a glossy picture menu depicting the “set” options and large lacquer trays arranged with our chosen dishes are delivered to us shortly. Lunch is good. This restaurant is just one of many like these, formula, but with mindful presentation and gracious service. Our bill is about $30 for the three of us, including tax and there is no tipping in Japan.

Takaki picks us up at the hotel at 1:00 P.M. sharp. He has arranged for us to look at an apartment near the harbor. This area of the city is older and Art and John would prefer to be in Shintoshin but there are not many short term apartments available anywhere. It is on the second floor, has two sunny front rooms, a narrow balcony and a second bedroom off the back but it isn’t furnished. It is $10,000. Yen per month plus utilities. (about $875) The apartment next door is also available, has the same floor plan and is furnished. It’s $12,000. (about $1050) Yen per month but the furnishings are ghastly. I am not sure I will be able to live with the turquoise floral bedspreads, lace covered Kleenex boxes and plaid couch but we decide to take the furnished one so that we don’t have to spend time and money setting up house. Unfortunately the apartment doesn’t have internet connection so we will have to walk to an internet café daily. The nearest one is about 20 minutes away and Takaki drives us there so we can check it out. We have all been getting along well, but the three of us can’t continue to live in our 10 foot x 10 foot room much longer without loosing our sanity.

We part ways with Takaki at the internet café to walk back to our hotel via the skate park and central park in Shintoshin. It’s another gorgeous day and John spends a few minutes on the half pipe, but he has the wrong board and skates ahead of us to get his longer board back at the hotel. Except for the traffic, we have no worries about John being on his own in the city. Art returns to the skate park to hang with John while I work on my blog in the hotel.

One more unconventional aspect of the Super Hotel is that you must leave your room between the hours of 10:00 A.M. and 3:00 P.M. During this time a crew of about 10 women cleans the rooms. I saw them gathering this morning just before we left. They stood in two lines facing each other reading in unison, almost chanting, from sheets of paper in front of them. The female desk clerk led them in this exercise. Apparently before the work day begins in many work groups in Japan, there is a team meeting where the employees recite the company values and motivational mantra. These women were all wearing matching green scrub covers. Their heads were covered with green scarves. They did not look joyful or motivated.

This Super Hotel is centrally located in the Shintoshin district so for dinner we walk over to the Duty Free Center Mall. Art promises us an adventure so we glide up a sleek escalator and at the top is the “Coliseum” food court. This is like no other food court that I have seen. The hostess at the top of the escalator hands us a “charge” card to record our purchases at any of the various food stations. We will pay the total when we leave. The lighting and ambience is elegant and we circle the various “Islands” trying to choose. There is a glimmering drink island where one can order most any libation and diverse entrees from around the world. When traveling our family has an extremely difficult time choosing where to eat and tonight is no exception. Although the prices are not exceptionally high, we are exhausted and decide that tonight might not be the best night to try this dining experience. We complete our circle, hand the hostess our unused cards and return to the street. We walk back past another mall and on its second floor is the usual food court. Art and John choose McDonalds and I eat a pate of chicken and salad. The mall is teaming with teenagers and I enjoy the fashion parade as I eat a very poor dinner.