Luxury in Tokyo!!

There is a hotel here called the New Sanno that is in the middle of downtown Tokyo and it is restricted to military personnel or officials. It is so cheap and so nice (think like 4-5 stars) and all I will say is our hotel room cost less than $60--unheard of for such a nice hotel and here in Tokyo if you stay in a hotel it is EXPENSIVE!! Anyways, so the New Sanno is just about the best place on earth. This was our first stay and for sure not our last. We plan on taking trips up there at least every 3-4 months. The nice thing about it, besides being so gorgeous, is that you feel like you are in America and in the lap of luxury. It has a couple of very good restaurants, you are taken care of so nicely and everyone speaks English!! Anyways, so we drove up Monday afternoon and came home Tuesday afternoon. It is kind of sad, but Ethan was ecstatic to stay in a hotel and couldn't stop talking about it. It has now been a week and he is still asking me when we are going back to the hotel. I guess this tells me that he has spent a little too much time in hotels if he loves hotels that much!

Anyways, so we headed down Monday afternoon. Here is a picture of our little diva on the drive (it was a little over an hour)--she refused to take off her sunglasses all day.

This next picture is an example of what it is like to park in Japan. This is the parking lot at the hotel and like most places, all the parking spots are so TINY!! You can't tell too well from the picture, but we had about 3 inches on either side, so we had to jump out the back of the car!!

After eating a wonderful meal at the hotel, we hopped on the train and headed out to see some Christmas lights. We had read about a couple of displays in the base paper and decided to go see them. We will just say that next time we venture out, we need to do more research. So we found the lights and here is a picture:

When we got there, all of these people were waiting in line and there were a bunch sitting in bleachers watching the lights and the weirdest music was playing. As people walked through the line, they stopped at this tree and took pictures as they touched a big seashell.

Here is a picture of the big tree thing and people touching the sea shell. As they touched the shell, you would have thought it was the most important thing ever. ERic and I joked that it seemed like a cult. Anyways, I just can't describe how bizarre the whole thing was. However, Japanese are just bizarre. It was an interesting experience!

The next day we hung around the hotel and went swimming (they have a great indoor pool) and enjoyed a wonderful breakfast buffet. Like I said, we didn't want to leave, we felt like we were in the lap of luxury and can't wait to go back. We already have reservations for May when my parents come--yahoo!!