After leaving Guam and returning to Haneda, we checked in at the new Mercure Tokyo Haneda Airport. We visited the atré at Shinagawa Station where we had lunch at the new Toriton kaiten sushi restaurant. We spent the evening looking at the winter illuminations near Tokyo Station.
Guam
We woke up before 3am at the Westin in Guam, checking out around 3:45am dropping off our car at the airport soon after to ensure we had a less than 24 hour rental.
After dropping off the car, we checked in and headed to security, passing by this small Christmas display on the way.
We headed right to the United Club where we had some breakfast. Happily, they had some hot items including sausage!
Soon, we were in the air! We quickly proceeded to the west before turning north to head for Japan. Like our flight to Guam, we declined meal service to try and get as much rest as possible during the flight.
Arrival
After landing at Narita, we entered Japan and went to the Yamato Transport Airport TA-Q-BIN counter to send our large checked luggage to Hokkaido! It mostly contains ski equipment which we don’t be needing here in Tokyo.
We then got tickets and a seat reservation for the Narita Express to Shinagawa Station. There are other ways of getting there, all cheaper, but none are as quick or convenient. The trip is one we’ve done many times and takes about an hour. After arriving at Shinagawa Station, we changed to the Keikyu Line to head to 大鳥居駅 Otorii Station, just three stops away from Haneda Airport.
One thing we forgot how to do was to use the transfer gates to go from the JR Lines to the Keikyu Line.
Mercure Tokyo Haneda Airport
We arrived at the Mercure Tokyo Haneda Airport around 1pm and were able to check in and get our room right away.
We will be staying for four nights with an approximate rate of $250 USD per night. Western style hotels in Tokyo have been rather expensive recently, particularly ones located in the more popular areas near transit.
Mercure is part of the large French Accor hotel chain. In the past, I had low tier status in their membership program from some stays in Australia. I was never particularly fond of Accor and generally have avoided them since then. So, we’ll see how this goes!
This property opened last year in November so it is just over a year old. The room was in excellent condition with an attractive appearance.
The bathroom was a good size with a Japanese toilet as well as a sort of Japanese style tub and shower room.
This part of Tokyo isn’t particularly scenic in any way! At least our room was high enough to see over the neighboring buildings. Our room was on the south side of the hotel, facing the afternoon sun.
Shinagawa
We decided to go to the atré shopping mall at Shinagawa Station as we wanted to check out the JINS eyeglass store as well as have a late lunch. Unfortunately, our astigmatism values are too high which means that our glasses couldn’t be made in the store. Given the short time that we will be in Tokyo, this means that getting glasses made wasn’t a realistic option. Which is unfortunate as JINS’ Japanese pricing is really quite good. They do have limited stores in the US as well as online ordering so we’ll have to wait until we’re back home.
We noticed this sign in the atré. Probably the first time we’ve seen New York and Friendly together!
We decided to have lunch at トリトン, pronounced Toriton meaning Triton, the Greek god of the sea. This restaurant is part of a kaiten sushi chain from Hokkaido and opened this year on Valentine’s Day according to their Tabelog page. We will be going to Hokkaido later on this trip so this is kind of like a preview of what is to come!
We ended up having to queue for a bit, though luckily the wait wasn’t too bad.
We ended up eating 20 plates at roughly $60 USD thanks to the very favorable exchange rate! At $3 a plate on average, that is ridiculously cheap by American standards! And of course, the fish, rice, and preparation is much better here.
The menu here is somewhat limited compared to other kaiten sushi restaurants that we’ve been to but it does have popular favorites like tuna and salmon. They do have a large selection of items from Hokkaido though, which we tried to sample as much as we could.
We ate for about 40 minutes, finishing around 4pm. Sunset was around 4:35pm so we decided to go take a look at some of the winter illuminations around Tokyo Station.
Winter Illuminations
We’ve been here in Tokyo around Christmas season a number of times now over the years. Some of the illumination events end at Christmas while others continue on. We decided to walk around the 丸の内 Marunouchi district between Tokyo Station and the Imperial Palace. We headed to the Marunouchi Naka-dori, a street lined with illuminated trees during the winter season.
We passed by sculptures long the street. Some of these are familiar while others are ones that we’ve simply never really paid much attention to!
We were a bit surprised to run into Mario’s green brother Luigi at a corner! There were also some ghosts and Luigi seemed to be carrying a ghost-busting vacuum! We weren’t quite sure what this display was for, although there was a sign that we didn’t notice at the time that provides the answer!
We decided to wander around a bit and came across a lit up tree next to some frosted glass panels.
We also saw this illuminated tree with red leaves. It felt a bit like it was still the fall leaf season! We didn’t know it at the time but this is the 大手町の森 Otemachi Forest. It occupies the space just to the west of the Otemachi Tower and seems to have the same footprint as the building. This office tower contains the headquarters for Japan’s Mizuho Bank, which is pretty much everywhere in Japan, and also contains the Aman Tokyo luxury hotel at the top. The room rates at the Aman are, well, lets just say many times what we’re paying to stay at the Mercure!
We didn’t go too far before turning around. It would be interesting to see this area during the day and in a season other than winter!
This was the view looking south down the Marunouchi Naka-dori. It ends here at the Otemachi Forest.
We turned right at this intersection to find these illuminated trees in front of the adjacent office building.
We decided to return to the Marunouchi Naka-dori to head south.
In past years, the Marunouchi Bright Christmas event has been held here in the Marunouchi district. The past events that we’ve been present for were all Disney themed. This year, it has become the Marunouchi Bright Holiday and is Super Mario themed! This explains the Luigi that we saw earlier! It is on this map as #4.
We are in the Shin-Marunouchi Building which means Princess Peach is here.
And indeed, there she is!
There is also a pipe next to her to pop out of! Or to jump into. Apparently, this is also a nice place for サラリーマン salarymen to get some work done!
Back in 2019, the last Christmas before the pandemic began, we saw the 東京ミチテラス Tokyo Michi Terrace on Gyoko-dori, the wide street in front of Tokyo Station. We remember it being ridiculously busy. It seems this event hasn’t been held consistently since then.
This year, we were surprised to find wedding photographers! Tokyo Station is quite an iconic sight with its beautiful recently renovated Western appearance.
We wouldn’t think too much of it except there were many wedding photo sessions taking place with some further away from the station.
These seem to be the prime spots.
The next building we went into the was the Marunouchi Building which has always held the main event. This year, it was the Super Mario Power-Up Illumination. We went to the second floor to take a look as we have learned from past years that this offers the best unobstructed views.
We felt this year’s event here was a bit lackluster compared to the Disney themed events that we’ve seen previously.
After going back outside, we came across a beautiful Japanese maple with nearly all its leaves still in fall colors!
There were other trees that had some fall foliage left but none were as impressive as that tree we just saw.
A very green and mossy display!
We found Toad and his Mushroom Kingdom friends at the 丸の内ブリックスクエア Marunouchi Brick Square. Despite having been in this area many times, we’ve never come across this pleasant little plaza.
We were incredibly surprised to come across this sculpture! Earlier this month, we saw a much larger version in Zurich! This sculpture is Sheep Piece by Henry Moore. Multiple copies of the sculpture were created from plaster molds in three different sizes. This copy is labelled as Working Model for Sheep Piece on its sign, which seems to correspond to the middle sized sculptures.
As part of the Marunouchi Bright Christmas & Holiday event, there is a stamp rally. A stamp booklet can be purchased to collect the stamps, or one can simply put the stamp on some other paper or in a book. According to this display, there are nine stamps available this year.
We noticed a chocolate shop, カカオ サンパカ Cacao Sampaka, on the west side of the square. We decided to get a rather unique soft serve. It was chocolate and truffle flavored! The truffle flavor seemed to come from truffle sauce drizzled atop the ice cream . It was good and different from the usual.
An interesting sculpture across the street titled 白のマスク The White Mask by 澄川喜一 Kiichi Sumikawa.
We’ve never noticed these blue arrows on the ground before.
The illuminated trees along the Marunouchi Naka-Dori continue for many blocks.
This sculpture is 展望台 The Lookout Tower by Jim Dine, an American.
We came across another pipe at #6 on the event map in the クニギワ Kunigiwa / 国際ビル Kokusai Building.
This gallery got our attention because of cats and mountains! Ideally, we would have some idea of what gallery this was but we don’t know!
We walked past a building that had illuminated bushes at street level.
In the past, after walking through the illuminations here, we’ve gone to other parts of Tokyo to see what they have there. But, we were tired so it was time to head back!
Otorii
After returning to Otorii, we walked back to the Mercure. On the way, we noticed a BMW motorcycle store. Seeing Motorrad, German for Motorcycle, reminded us of our visit to BMW in their home town of Munich earlier this year.
The Mercure is just a 3 to 4 minute walk from Otorii Station’s east exit. The only downside of this exit is that it requires walking up stairs.
It has been quite a long day! Almost a bit hard to believe we started out in tropical Guam and have returned to the winter season here in Japan!