Japan Day 7: Back to Tokyo

Waited for the morning rush hour to die down, then boarded the Shinkansen back to Tokyo . Hotel #3 was in the prefect of Ikebukuro – a few stops north of hotel #1. Our third room at the Hotel Metropolitan Tokyo seemed enormous compared to our previous accommodations. Bonus points for a real mattress and pillows that didn’t feel like concrete. The afternoon was pretty low-key and spent roaming around the area which was filled with the usual shops and mall that surrounded the train/subway station.

That evening we met up with Kim and her Steve, and their friend Byron. We were supposed to meet Kim’s friend from NJ and his friends who happened to be in Tokyo . Unfortunately our first attempt to get to the restaurant where we were meeting was fouled because we went to the wrong location. Since taking the monorail and subway back to where we were supposed to be would take too long, we hopped in a taxi to head back to Roppongi where the restaurant was. The taxi drivers wouldn’t let the 5 of us squeeze into one cab so we split up and of course, ended up getting separated. After about an hour of trying to find one another, we all finally ended up at the restaurant.

Kim’s friend chose this restaurant called Gonpachi because it was the inspiration for some of the scenes in Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill movie. The restaurant served tapas-style Japanese food. Totally overpriced and overrated. I had about 6 bites of various appetizers and 3 beers and was starving when we got the bill which ended up being about 5000 yen/person. That’s about $60/person. Maybe most of the food ended up on the other side of the table – who knows. Steve and I opted to skip the club scene and caught a taxi back to our hotel since the subway was no longer running. Taxis in Japan are expensive; it cost us about 850 yen (about $8) just to get into the taxi. Once back at the hotel I chowed down on some trail mix and beef jerky we had packed.