Not in Tokyo - pt 4

Hey guys,  another update from Japan!   I am actually notin Tokyo anymore.  I'm in Osaka right now. 　今東京にない、今大阪にいる。今朝新幹線で来た。今日長間友達を会った、観光した。でも問題一杯在りました。でも最後、とてもすごい日なりました！写真一杯撮ったから、一寸待って!；－）

Have you ever had a day that turned super stressful to the point where just about everything you planned goes to crap and you're ready to throw your hands up in the air and forget th whole thing?  Today started out that way... but being the Happy Buoyant Spiritthat I am...   i stuck it out, mentally regrouped and eventually it turned out to be an awesome day...  (so awesome that you're going to have to wait a week or two before I can edit down all the pictures into a blog!) ;-)

I came down to visit a friend of mine and hopefully do some sightseeing outside of Tokyo (i like partying in Tokyo as much as the next guy, but going around the rest of the country is actually much, much more interesting).  I'm leaving early tomorrow morning for HK,  so I got a room in a cool 'business hotel'  that I've stayed in before...  it has the extremely modest and brief name of Super Hotel JR Shin-Osaka Higashiguchi .

Yes that IS a semi-double bed AND a LCD TV...

Its a bit more hi tech and actually a LOT more spacious than the average Japanese Business Hotel (which are generally extremely no frills rooms made for business travelers that are usually the size of a small walk-in closet. (i think this one was the smallesti ever stayed in,  it was so small in order to get through the bathroom door I had to relocated my suitcase to in front of the hallway door and visa versa to get out into the hallway).

Super Hotel's rooms are much bigger!  And it also comes with one of those uniquely japanese all-plastic bathrooms. in this case equipped with a robo-toilet (aka Washlette).   I'm not a big fan of them,  but i have to say the heated seat was a nice feature... its quite cold outside at night here!

its hi tech in that you don't pay at the front desk,  you fill out a form at the front desk than they point you towards a vending machine that accepts your money and prints out a  receipt,  the receipt has a room number and a code # on it,  the number will open the door to your room.

Its good from their end, in that the clerks don't deal w/ any cash and there's no keys or keycards to worry about losing.  the problem is of course if you lose that piece of paper with the code.... you're completely screwed (cause whoever finds it will have no problem stealing everything in your room before you can run back and warn the front desk).

The best part about 'Super Hotel' was the price.  I booked it online and got the room for 3990 yen,  thats like $36 / night! 

今夜僕は大阪に泊まっている、’スーパーホテルJR新大阪東口’と言います。泊まった事が有る。普通ビズナスホテルより新し広し安し！3990円／日です！本と！楽天で予約した!

I gotta head out to the airport by 7, so I'll have to cut this blog short,  let me just share one more picture,  in this case another language error one:

This was some kind of mouthwash/breath freshener they had in the bathroom of this fancy pants bar we were at in Roppongi last night. 

Two strange things:

1) the English name is 'Breatht' (a misspelling or did they invent a new word? is it supposed to be Breath-T?)

2) the name in Japanese is even worse - because of the extra 't' in the name, the Japanese name is written 'ブレスト' which would be pronounced 'Buresuto',  which is about the same way a Japanese person would pronounce the word 'breast'... 

この物見たことが有る？六本木のバーのお手洗いで見た。名前面白いですよ！英語の事が’Breath’です、この品の名前’Breatht’ですね．．．他の問題は：カタカナの名前も間違い！ブレストです、ブレアス/ブレス（Breath)じゃない、ブレスト（Breast = オッパイ！）とても面白い！

you can imagine the comedic misunderstandings when people say stuff like:　「口臭時、ブレストを口に入えなければなりません！その後香しになる！」(which translates to something like:　 "When I have bad breath, I need to put some ブレスト in my mouth! It makes it smell good")

ok, thats it for now.  by the time you read this, i should be on my way back to HK! :-P