Posted by Seth on March 12, 2009 under Uncategorized | 
Hilton sure hopes so. Apparently having ten different brands in their family just wasn’t enough, so they’re adding a new one: Denzien Hotels (warning - stupid flash site with lots of audio and very little useful information). So what are Denzien Hotels? I’m glad you asked.
Denizen Hotels will become a cultural epicentre at each of its destinations, cultivating community within its walls. Eclectic, social and humbly authentic, each property within the brand will be smart in design, cultural in character and sensitive in service delivery. Developed as an international intersection of business and pleasure, Denizen Hotels will redefine how guests stay and play. With innovative check-in technologies and in-room comfort controlled at the touch of a button, Denizen Hotels destinations will harness the best and brightest design and technology to provide a seamless guest experience for the modern traveler.
Yeah. All that, just for a hotel. I actually wonder just how many different marketing groups got to chip in on the one paragraph and put their finish on it. Certainly one of the groups speaks the Queen’s English natively (“epicentre”) so that’s fun. But it seems like they’re going for “unique” experiences at each location. That is actually something that, as a business traveler, I find very annoying. It is great on a vacation where you want something new and different. But when traveling for work I pretty much want a consistent experience. That is actually one of the reasons that I like the Embassy Suites brand so much. Many of them are exactly the same. And if not exactly they are pretty close. It really makes things easier when you can’t remember what city you’re in.
Still, I wish Hilton luck. After all, launching a new chain of hotels in an economic climate that is seeing travel numbers drop, especially at the high end, cannot be an easy challenge.
Posted by Seth on March 11, 2009 under Uncategorized |
A couple stories caught my eye regarding emails from airlines. Both are rather strange, though for different reasons.
First up, word from a few security companies that virus emails purportedly from Delta are making the rounds. They prey on the fact that Delta includes an attachment in their itinerary confirmation emails, meaning that people are used to opening an attachment that appears to be from the airline. And since the message appears to come from a “known” sender that whole idea of not opening unknown emails doesn’t seem to be working to prevent the spread of the infections. Of course, the fact that Delta still insists on including an attachment in their emails baffles me. I don’t understand why they do it. And the fact is that people are likely going to open the virus emails no matter what they say on them, much like people continue to smoke cigarettes even though they know cancer is coming. Still, this is the first time I’ve seen an airline get played this way rather than a bank, so that is intriguing.
The second strange email story is brought to us by United. They have a habit of setting policies that I just don’t understand, so I suppose this latest one shouldn’t surprise me at all. But it does. Email marketing has to be pretty much the cheapest medium out there. It requires a minimal infrastructure investment and then it is essentially free. There are no real charges to send out a thousand or a million emails. This affordability has made it the method of choice for many, many companies. United, however, has decided that email marketing just isn’t worth the effort for them, at least for their weekend specials. Here’s what they had to say in this week’s email:
Thank you for having subscribed to our E-Fares emails. These weekly emails are being discontinued, and this is the last issue that you will receive. E-Fares will continue to be available on united.com Tuesday through Friday of each week. To see these fares, you can select the E-Fares link in the News & Deals section of the united.com home page or on the Special Deals page, whenever E-Fares are available. You can also use the united.com booking tool and look for fares marked with a blue star and the label "E-Fares."
Basically they’re going to stop trying to sell these deals to their customers unless the customer goes out of their way to find the deal. I just don’t get that mentality. Sure, the deals aren’t all that great, so it isn’t a huge loss, but choosing to stop marketing them aggressively (or really at all) just doesn’t make any sense to me. It can’t be costing them very much money to generate and send those emails every week. So why cut it?
I’m sure I’ll never understand the motivation behind either of these developments, but that’s just part of the fun living in my sheltered little world of reality rather than Delta- or United-land.
Posted by Seth on March 10, 2009 under Trip Reports |
All my flights finally posted to my frequent flier account and I can finally go in and tally up the totals. They are pretty ridiculous. Over 169 hours of travel I:
- flew 34,922 actual miles in the air over about 75 hours.
- accrued 48,699 miles in my Continental OnePass account. It would have been more but I dropped down to only silver status on March 1 so the elite bonus numbers were way lower.
- accrued 43,492 elite qualification miles. That was enough to push me well over the threshold for my gold status qualification (50K) and has me primed for platinum requalification at some point later this year.
- spent 12/15 flights in the front cabin. The vast majority of those upgrades were free; only two required spending points/cash to upgrade.
I also spent five of the seven nights sleeping on an airplane and one night sleeping in a plywood box. While on the ground in Tokyo I only spent ¥23,000, or about $230. Of that, about $100 was on sushi, $70 on transportation and only $50 on lodging. Hence the plywood box.
And I came home with a ton of stories and photos. That’s always the best part.
Posted by Seth on March 9, 2009 under Trip Reports |
About 75% of my transportation in Tokyo was on the train, so I got a pretty good feel for the local train options that they had. I didn’t get to ride any of the intercity rail lines such as the “bullet train” so no observations on those, but overall I was rather impressed by the local options that I had.
Getting from the airport to the city is surprisingly slow. Yes, the airport is ridiculously far from town (~80Km) so I wasn’t expecting it to be a 10 minute ride like from National to downtown DC, but the 60-80 minute ride on the train was pretty slow. It didn’t help that I was pretty tired from the flying and had my headphones on and missed my stop on the train, adding an extra 30 minutes to the trip. The extra bit also introduced me to an even more local train than the one I started on, so that was nice.
The trains in Tokyo are operated by three different companies, which also adds to the confusion of the system. Ultimately I chose to pay a bit extra for my rides and have the flexibility of riding any line at any time, but I’m not entirely sure that was necessary. I used a lot of the information from this site for helping plan my trip, and he’s got a bunch of useful information on there. I highly recommend it if you are planning a trip. I ended up with the Pasmo card, basically a stored-value card that works on all the systems in town. A typical ride is somewhere between ¥150-¥250 ($1.50-$2.50), on top of a ¥500 deposit for the card. Supposedly you can get the deposit refunded if you return the card but I kept mine as a souvenir. The daily unlimited cards cost around ¥700 so my two days for ¥1500 (plus the deposit) were about the same price and I didn’t have to worry about which line I was riding. If you’re riding more then a daily might be a better deal, but I was happier not worrying about which train station I had to find, as I was pretty lost throughout the trip.
A few things that struck me as particularly impressive about the train network. First is that the stations are all numbered using the Arabic Latin alphabet and numerals. That was VERY useful for me. Second, the map that they have is very busy because of the number of different routes. And it doesn’t have any landmarks on it. That’s generally not a problem, but there are also some quirks with the spacing of the stations such that some appear to be very close when they are, in reality, not. I ended up about a half mile out of the way – in the pouring rain – thanks to my inability to figure out the map so well. Oopsie. The good news is that there are street maps just about everywhere at street level – officially for evacuation purposes but they are a boon for tourists – so figuring out where you are and how to get to the next place isn’t so hard.
There are displays on every platform that list the details of the next train, including destination and when it will depart the station. I never waited more than 4 minutes for a subway in town and only about 10 minutes at either end for my airport transfers. I’m pretty happy with those timings.
My biggest gripe about the system is that it shuts down overnight. I know that most metro systems do and that New York is actually an exception more than a rule, but I’m still so used to always having it available that when it isn’t I’m surprised. It cost me a pretty penny (¥3000) for the taxi to Tsukiji as the subway wasn’t running in the early morning, and I could see it being a problem if I were out drinking late one night, but in the end that is a small complaint about an otherwise ridiculously efficient and well run system.
Posted by Seth on March 8, 2009 under Trip Reports |
I really cannot get over just how much fun I had wandering the stalls of the Tsukiji market, taking in the tuna auction and otherwise being immersed in a bit of the local culture where, even as an obvious foreigner, I was paid no mind. The folks there had work to do and my presence certainly wasn’t going to affect them getting their job done.
And what a job it is. Once the tuna are bought they rapidly travel through a series of wholesalers, making it to the retail market only an hour or two after the auction, and into my stomach shortly after that. For the frozen tuna the tool of choice is the band saw. For the fresh stuff it is a series of knives, starting with what appears to be a samurai sword that takes three men to wield and proceeding to a series of smaller knives after that.
Not wanting to waste even the slightest bit of fish (and at the prices they are paying, who can blame them??) they even go so far as to scrape the bones clean and save that last little bit to put to use somehow.
Weighing in a chunk of tuna for a customer
Yup, it is a yellow fin tuna
A bit of a shrine in the driver’s door of a delivery truck parked at the market
The market has way more than just tuna available. Just about any type of fish could be found, as well as many non-fish items in the farmers’ market offshoot around the side. I recognized some of the fish that were out on display, but many, many, many were completely foreign to me, at least in their natural state.
I think that perhaps the most interesting part of the entire auction process is that the language used is not really Japanese. Yes, the numbers from the bidding are, but the rest of the words that the auctioneer shouts are no more intelligible to a native Japanese speaker than they were to me. Second-most interesting is that it only takes about six seconds to sell a fish. With a couple hundred to sell each morning that speed is rather important. They apparently actually tried to computerize the process a couple years back, sinking USD $20MM into the effort, and realized that it was slowing them down so they scrapped the whole thing.
Also, I mentioned in my initial post about my Tsukiji visit that I took some video of the auction process. Generally I’m not a fan of video; I prefer to tell the story through still images. But I don’t think that I could do the auction justice without some videos, so here they are.
Prepping the fish for the auction:
Getting a feel for the quality of the tuna:
The auctions underway:
Just an awesome time overall. They are working on plans to overhaul the existing space, in use for ~80 years at this point, in favor of a new facility by 2014. So get there now and see the show before it is gone.
If you really wanted to, a visit could be done in just about 48 hours from most cities in the USA with non-stop service to Tokyo. Fly over on day one, see the market and head back out to the airport for the return flight. There’s even some extra time in there to see other things around town. I don’t think it is quite as compelling an experience as the Taj at sunrise, and probably wouldn’t make a special trip just for it again, but it is definitely one of the highlights of a visit to Tokyo.
A few other logistical notes about the visit. The market is up and running very early in the morning. There was activity at 4:20am when I got there. And the tuna room is only open from 5-6:15am. The first ~45 minutes of that is them getting ready and then the auctions come fast and furious. The 6:15am stop time is pretty strictly enforced, so don’t expect to arrive late and still get to see things. That being said, you do not really need to be there at 5am to catch the action. The Tokyo metro doesn’t start running until ~5am and, depending on which neighborhood you are staying in, you can be at the market by 5:30am by taking the metro without too much trouble. That is a good thing since taxis in Tokyo are pretty ridiculously expensive. I ended up spending ¥3000 (~$30) for a taxi to the market because I was awake at 4am and ready to go and didn’t realize that the metro wasn’t open yet until I found all the gates closed. So, if you are looking to save a bit of cash, time things for the first metro train and skip the taxi. There were several people at the auctions with “guides” escorting them around but I wouldn’t spend my money on them, particularly based on the info I heard them providing while there. They didn’t seem very helpful at all and it really isn’t too hard to navigate that part of the market on your own. And it is cold in there. It was also relatively cold outside while I was there so I’m not sure what it would be like in the middle of the summer, but all that frozen fish in a room keeps the temperatures pretty low in there.
If you plan on eating sushi in the market area after the show, expect to spend ¥1500-2000 per person, cash only, at the lower end places and as much as you want if you just keep ordering more at some of the other places. A breakfast can easily end up in the ¥4,000 range in a hurry, particularly if you keep ordering the o-toro. Also if you plan on going to a place where you aren’t ordering a set menu, try to learn a few words of the types of sushi you want. Salmon is the easiest since it is the same. Otherwise, copy down the Japanese words from your local sushi place (the regular stuff, not the crazy rolls) and use that as a guide. Ordering hamachi, for example, was easy to do and much better received by the chef than had I said “yellow tail.”
A couple parting photos from the tuna market. The “steam” you see rising off the fish is actually the ice melting. And it really is hard to get a grasp for just how big the room is. There were easily 200 fish sold the morning I was there, ranging in size from 20-300Kg. That’s a LOT of tuna!
Posted by Seth on March 7, 2009 under Uncategorized |
Gate Information Display Systems, also known as GIDS, are the airlines’ fancy name for the screens that they have near the gates telling you what is going on specifically with your flight. Delta pioneered the introduction of advanced GIDS systems several years ago, rolling out flat screen displays throughout their network and giving passengers a view into the details for flight status, in-flight service and waitlist information. Other airlines have seen limited deployments of similar technologies, too.
Continental finally is joining the party on this front, with their initial deployment of advanced GIDS displays starting yesterday at a couple gates each in Houston and Newark. This isn’t really a surprise – we’ve known it was coming at least since last month’s event down in Houston and probably longer than that – but it is nice to see that they are getting the installation started.
For the initial gates in Houston I noticed that the screens are not really in the sight lines for passengers who would be waiting in the gate area, which is a bit strange, but I’m sure that they were dealing with other issues in those particular gates. Or they just didn’t care, but that seems less likely.
The new screen on display at gate E5 in Houston’s Intercontinental airport
Just a few of the information screens that the GIDS cycles through
There are ads on it, too, which isn’t much of a surprise; they seem to cycle through reasonably quickly so it doesn’t seem like they’ll be too intrusive.
The content being displayed is the same as what Continental has had available on their mobile/PDA website for just over a year now, so the transparency in the system isn’t completely new for the carrier. Having it up on screens rather than requiring folks to constantly poke at their PDAs will certainly be a welcome development. Plus, not everyone has a device with them all the time (or so I’ve been told) so adding this obviously helps them, too.
Posted by Seth on March 7, 2009 under Trip Reports |
It is hard to find more contrasting areas in Tokyo than the Imperial Palace and the combination of the Shibuya and Harajuku districts. I visited them consecutively and the differences were even more striking paced on that juxtaposition. The Imperial Palace grounds are quiet, calm and relatively devoid of people. Shibuya couldn’t be more different, with hundreds of people crossing the street every sixty seconds and thousands more in the surrounding areas. In addition to the numbers of people, the type of people you run in to on the streets is very different. The palace grounds were being enjoyed mostly by older folks while the Shibuya area saw punk fun at every turn.
First up, a few pictures from the Palace grounds. They are impeccably well maintained, which should come as no surprise, and there are quite a few rather old buildings still on the grounds, including this guard house, though I think the rain gutters are likely a more recent addition.
There were several folks out on the palace grounds on this Thursday afternoon, enjoying a blue sky day and getting a bit of painting done. Some of the stuff actually looked pretty good, I’d say.
And, though it isn’t quite Cherry Blossom season yet, it is very close, and there were a number of flowers starting to bloom throughout the grounds.
A bit of meditation helps to melt away the stress.
And, headed out of the area, checking out some of the serious hardware they have for door locks. I know that there isn’t really a sense of scale in the photo, but the “bolt” there is probably about ten inches square. They weren’t messing around with that stuff.
And from that serenity I made my way to the metro and then to the Harajuku area and then the Shibuya area to watch the crowds go wandering by. Suffice it to say that there was a wide variety of options visible when it comes to the dress code. High heels and (very) short skirts are quite popular in Tokyo among young women, it seems, as were a number of less traditional options.
And then, of course, there is the famous intersection in Shibuya, right outside the train station, that sees hundreds of pedestrians with each cycle of the lights. Getting a decent photo of the crowd is harder than it might seem, especially at night. I actually ended up climbing on a traffic barricade and using a lamp post as a balance source to get some of these photos. Yes, I was stared at even more than just for being a gaijin on the street taking lots of photos. But I got the shots, so I don’t really care all that much.
One more photo that I took during the <> visit, this time of myself:
Each of the areas has its own merits, and all are worth a visit. Just plan your day to take advantage of the benefits that each area has to offer (the kids don’t really come out until after school and the Imperial Palace grounds close at night, for example) so you don’t miss out on any of the fun or the calm.
Posted by Seth on March 6, 2009 under Trip Reports |
Though it might be hard to tell from some of my earlier posts (and some later ones that I have in the works) there really is more to Tokyo than eating sushi. With some of the time I had between meals I was able to get out and see bits of the city. With only ~50 hours on the ground the total of what I saw was necessarily limited, but I made it to a few different neighborhoods and saw enough to get a feel for at least part of it.
For starters, I stayed in the Asakusa district. I actually crossed a river from the Asakusa metro station so it is entirely possible that the neighborhood had a different name, but that was the general area I was in. Like many of my recent trips I prioritized cost over quality for this hotel stay and I got exactly what I paid for at the Khaosan Hotel Annex (the main property on the other side of the water was full). It was not luxurious by any means, but there was some privacy in the “pod” bed, it was clean and it was ridiculously cheap – about $30/night – which was helpful for my travel budget. And my lodging was only 15-30 minutes from most of the tourist destinations on the metro, so overall pretty convenient. No, I didn’t drink all those beers, but I had no troubles contributing to the collection.
The other main draw of the neighborhood was the Sensoji Temple. It is one of several temples in the city and, like most, is actually still actively used on a daily basis. I know that most of the classic cathedrals in Europe are still in use, too, but the overall volume passing through the temples I saw was very impressive. Still, the temples did have their quite moments. When I first arrived on Wednesday night and wandered around the neighborhood it was quiet, almost eerily so. This is the view of the Kaminarimon Gate and the street behind it that leads to the temple. During the day the area is packed with tourists and worshipers. But at 8pm on a Wednesday night it was almost completely deserted.
Above, the Kaminarimon Gate; below, the Nakamise Avenue shopping area
That same area, a couple days later during the day, even in the pouring rain was alive and bustling with activity.
The temple was pretty impressive, and I’m glad that I got to see it, even if my shoes are still wet 20 hours later. Worshipers bathing themselves in the incense smoke (photo above) or rinsing off in the fountain nearby were quite interesting to watch. Just one of the few non-sushi things to do in Tokyo.
Posted by Seth on March 5, 2009 under Trip Reports |
With as much tuna as I’ve eaten over the past 48 hours I would not be surprised if the mercury levels in my body are just a bit high. After the auction action yesterday morning I wandered around the Tsukiji grounds until I found a sushi shop that looked decent. My parameters were pretty low – other people eating there and not too long a line – and I eventually found one that was pretty good. A nice sashimi bowl with some regular tuna and some chu-toro, a bowl of soup and I was a happy camper for the next several hours. Oh, and they made ordering very easy thanks to a large picture menu available showing the various combinations.
For breakfast this morning I wasn’t going to wake up early enough to get to Tsukiji for a repeat performance of the auction but the sushi was pretty good, and I had just enough money left on my PASMO card (Tokyo subway stored value card) for a quick round-trip back to the market area. So off I went. I found the same place as the previous day and had more tuna there. Then, as I was walking back towards the subway station, I realized that I really should try some other options as long as I’m here. I walked in to another random sushi shop in the market area, Isonoya. It was much nicer inside and most certainly not focused on gaijin as customers. I showed no fear, walked in and sat down at the counter. The sushi chef asked if I spoke Japanese and was not too excited by the response, but once he realized that I was comfortable pointing and (mis-)pronouncing the Japanese as best as I could, he started slicing fish and I settled in for a nice second breakfast.
It is hard to know if the quality of the sushi at this place was better than the other one as I had all different items, and it really was all pretty delicious, so I’m not complaining. Some sweet shrimp, scallops (I ate one before I remembered to take a photo) and yellow tail:
One nice difference was that the soup at the nicer place was also much better. It was not a typical miso soup that the other place served; this one had scallions in it and a prawn head floating on top. The flavor was definitely different and absolutely phenomenal.
After the nice sushi spread and the soup it was time for dessert, the delicious, buttery and smooth flavor of o-toro, the fattiest of the tuna options. The chef was a bit surprised when I ordered it, but I nodded and smiled and he realized that I knew what I was doing, at least on that particular topic, and served up a couple pieces of tuna heaven.
I also had one meal that, rather shockingly, did not have sushi in it. For lunch yesterday I was wandering the streets looking for something reasonably priced and remembered that many recommend the top floors of department stores for food options. I was near a store so I thought I’d give it a try. Up and up and up on 7 flights of escalators, through the toy section – which was awesome! – and then one more flight of stairs to the food floor. I walked around there, apparently lost, wondering where the great food bargains that everyone talks about were. They certainly weren’t in the department store I tried. So that plan was an unfortunate bust. But I had a Plan B ready to go: follow the crowd. Wandering around back outside I noticed a place with an awesome sign and what appeared to me to be a pretty steady flow of customers. I rolled the dice and followed the crowd down the stairs into an udon shop. It was a low-key, cafeteria-style shop and fortunately had a picture menu available. I chose the broth with noodles and an egg, picked up some tempura (the guy in front of me did and it seemed like the right idea) and then paid my several hundred yen and settled in to a seat for a meal that I am quite certain was, yen for yen, better than the department store options that I saw.
Oh, about the sign. It really was awesome. As best as I can tell it is the Japanese equivalent of “Eat, drink and be merry,” which is a style of living that I’m a big fan of.
I’m headed to the airport now and will likely get one last meal in the lounge. I’m certain I’ll get to at least play with the beer machine. And that will be the end of my dining in Japan. Not a bad meal to be found, at least not where I was looking.
Posted by Seth on March 4, 2009 under Trip Reports |
A visit to the Tsukiji fish market in Tokyo has been on my to-do list for a while. Yes, that list is longer than it should be and full of many, many things that will never get done, but this one was special. I was pissed when they closed the tuna auctions to the public back in December and ecstatic when they opened back up in January. And actually getting to see it was everything I’d hoped it would be.
They hired some guards to enforce rules and that seems to have quelled the crowds a bit, or at least the raucous behavior; visitors are now confined to a small area in the auction rather than having free access to the who facility. Even with that restriction, the scene is pretty awesome. There are scores of frozen tuna laid out in rows throughout the building.
They are individually marked so that they can be identified during the bidding process:
A taster piece for the buyers to judge the fish by:
More fish laid out for auction:
I love this image. The bidders actually sit there fondling the tuna, rolling it in their fingers to literally “get a feel” for it before bidding. The book he is holding is his bid notes.
Some of the tools used in the main market area to section the fish once purchased:
I’ve got a ton more photos (hardly a surprise) and even some video as the auction experience really does benefit from video. But I’ve also only got 31 hours left here and I have way too much to see, so you’ll have to wait for the rest of them.
