When we went to Japan we stayed in a furnished apartment in the Roppongi district in Tokyo. The apartment was centrally located near the Embassy and also several shopping areas and a subway station. For those of you who don't know about Roppongi it is also one of the busier nightclub areas in Tokyo. I was a little worried about the unsavory characters that sometimes hang around on the street corners but all in all the place was pretty good. It was on a side street that was actually quite quiet and as I said it was very convenient to a number of important baby logistical hubs.
ももちぃをお迎えに行った時滞在したホテルです。値段の割には施設が整っていてとても良かったです。徒歩圏内にたくさんのお店があるのも便利でした。大使館へもタクシーですぐです。難を言えばベッドルームとリビングルームのドアが可動式だったので、音が漏れやすかったくらいでしょうか？ でもそれを差し引いてもお値打ち感のあるホテルでした。
From the bedroom looking in. A nice sized kitchen, living area with flat screen TV and a bazillion cable channels.
We rented this crib for the baby. Upon our arrival in the room, a couple of Japanese delivery guys showed up at the room and assembled the bed. Nice.
Here's the bathtub we used for the baby. It's right next to the Japanese style ofuro (tub). One thing about the United States - we have some pretty sorry bathtubs. They are long and shallow and the water gets cold much too quickly. A Japanese ofuro is compact and deep. You sit in the tub upright and when you get in the water comes up to your chest. The newer tubs have a re-heater that circulates the water and keeps it at the perfect temperature. Usually the whole family will use the same tub of water so keeping the water hot is a plus. Japanese take a shower before they take a bath so no, its not icky. Does it seem wasteful? Not really because they take "Navy showers" then hop in the tub. When we lived in Japan, Misao had a little electrical pump and hose and used to pump the water from the ofuro into the clothes washer and used it to wash clothes. Green, very green. Take that hippies.
Another feature of Japanese shower / ofuro rooms is the heater / fan built into the ceiling. After you're done bathing you can turn this bad boy on to help dry out the shower room to cut down on mold. You can also use it to dry clothes although it does suck the power. We usually hung our clothes outside on our balcony and this little device came in handy during the winter or when it rained.
Always space conscious the Japanese look to combine things to save space. This is a combo washer / dryer. It does it all. I will say though that it does it all very poorly. As sorry as our bath tubs are there are three US appliances that rule - dishwashers and our huge washers and dryers. Take that Toyota (actually that machine is an LG so technically I should have picked a Korean company).
We caught Momoka trying to order a pizza from Dominos. Can you believe that? Of course, as punishment, we took her cell phone away immediately.
Our Japanese stroller. This one stunk but there are some real nice ones available made by a Japanese company called Combi.
This is a picture of the front door at New Sanno Hotel in Minato Ku Ward in Tokyo. The hotel is run by the military and is available to military personnel and DoD civilians. The good thing about the hotel is its very clean, has a decent place to enjoy adult beverages, is located in one of the swankier spots in Tokyo and is very reasonable. The bad thing - located next to the French Embassy.
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