Toyko

Three Perfect Days, Tokyo

Author Andrew Bender Photography Joshua Paul

DAY ONE / Talk about having your head in the clouds. A touch of a button opens your curtains at the Ritz-Carlton Tokyo to reveal the city awakening below—far below. In fact, the hotel lobby (with giant Sam Francis paintings) is on the 45th floor of Tokyo Midtown Tower, the city’s tallest building at 818 feet. The hotel’s service is lofty too. It’s worth sending your shoes out for a complimentary shine just to receive them back in an elegant wooden box. Have breakfast in Forty Five, the hotel’s restaurant, before walking the surrounding neighborhood, Roppongi. Before your walk, ask the concierge to book your tickets for the Kabuki-za Theater tomorrow.

Go downstairs, and weave through the Tokyo Midtown complex, opened in 2007. Bamboo stalks draw the eye up four stories of atria lined with shopping and dining, amid stone sculptures and catwalks inlaid with washi paper. Here, the Suntory Museum of Art is a modernist showcase for ancient Japanese treasures. Across Midtown’s rolling lawn, inside a deceptively large, low-slung pavilion by Pritzker Prize–winning architect Tadao Ando, 21_21 Design Sight offers fanciful takes on design. (Fashion’s Issey Miyake curated the current show.)

Cross the main street. At the next bend, the glass façade of the National Art Center, Tokyo (also new in 2007) roils like ocean waves. Architect Kisho Kurokawa’s affection for the cone is obvious—you enter through one. Have a look; then break for coffee at the café and admire the four-story lobby that could berth an ocean liner.

By lunchtime, go down the hill and around the bend, where Roppongi Hills rises to your left, a 27-acre shopping/office/hotel complex that was a first for Tokyo when it debuted in 2003. Here, inside the Grand Hyatt Tokyo, cozy into a round booth at The French Kitchen, and let servers guide you through the appetizer buffet and on to steaks, seafood, and tempting desserts.

A postprandial stroll through Roppongi Hills provides a feast for the eyes. It’s easy—and fun—to lose yourself in California-based architect Jon Jerde’s motifs of East and West: pilasters, gardens of both the hanging and samurai variety, walls of water, and art by Louise Bourgeois, Martin Puryear, and Cai Guo-Giang.

About a 15-minute walk (or a quick taxi ride) away, Axis is a remarkable collection of design studios and shops. Le Garage sells accessories for fashion-forward F-1 fanatics: racing suits, antique leather helmets, and balloon-powered toy cars. Nuno textile studio, downstairs, has pieces in New York’s Museum of Modern Art. The fabrics—inlaid with feathers, stitched with Japanese paper, or woven from metal—are sold by the bolt or tailored into clothing or other creations.

Head back to the hotel for a soak with the city at your feet in the 46th-floor hot tub. Leave around 6 p.m. for dinner, a few minutes away by foot, where chef Masaharu Morimoto of the Iron Chef TV series oversees Morimoto XEX. Descend a spiral staircase, ascend over a fountain, and there, beneath copper range hoods, chefs grill succulent teppan-yaki. After dinner, go upstairs to the lounge for fireside cognac, cheese, and appropriately tiny desserts.

The futuristic Mori Art Museum stays open until 10 p.m. (5 p.m. on Tuesdays), on the top (52nd–54th) floors of Roppongi Hills’ Mori Tower. Exhibits change several times a year, and even if the museum is closed between shows, cap your day with stunning nightime city vistas from the Tokyo City View observatory.

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12 Responses to “Three Perfect Days, Tokyo”

  1. Julie Bartos Says:
    February 28th, 2009 at 7:22 pm

    would love to experience tokyo!

  2. Elisse J Goldstein Says:
    March 13th, 2009 at 6:51 pm

    Sushi Dai, one of the sushi bars in the Tokyo fish market, WAS great, and fun- for lunch. If you're a chef or gourmet cook or foodie, have a truly fine chef's knife made to order while you wait at one of the artisan carbon-steel knife-makers in the fish market, too (approx $180 and worth every dime!) I blogged about our 'foodie' trip to Japan (& Korea & Vietnam) with hot links to great food & fun on http://www.southernwestvirginia.blogspot.com, after April 2008.

  3. elisse Says:
    March 13th, 2009 at 11:51 pm

    Sushi Dai, one of the sushi bars in the Tokyo fish market, WAS great, and fun- for lunch. If you're a chef or gourmet cook or foodie, have a truly fine chef's knife made to order while you wait at one of the artisan carbon-steel knife-makers in the fish market, too (approx $180 and worth every dime!) I blogged about our 'foodie' trip to Japan (& Korea & Vietnam) with hot links to great food & fun on http://www.southernwestvirginia.blogspot.com, after April 2008.

  4. Vinduer og Døre Says:
    April 6th, 2009 at 7:48 am

    it is good to stay at Tokyo

  5. max191 Says:
    October 5th, 2009 at 12:58 am

    Interesting blog. It would be great if you can provide more details about it. Thanks a load!
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  6. DanielKadlek Says:
    October 14th, 2009 at 8:54 pm

    Check into getting Echinachea in herbal form to help your pet’s immune system diamond kitty and to help fight off infection.Always think safety first for your pet!

  7. eugene Says:
    March 21st, 2010 at 8:58 am

    enjoy the articles, they always invoke ritz-carltons.. kinda of a “cheap” way to facilitate 3 perfect days. wheres the work — planning in that?

  8. DanaC Says:
    April 18th, 2010 at 9:30 am

    As somebody who lived in Tokyo for more than 10years , I would NEVER EVER EVER take anybody visiting on a tour like the one suggested above. Total waste of time and money, not representative for what Tokyo really is.

  9. William B Says:
    June 21st, 2010 at 2:33 am

    I must agree with DanaC,
    This is not representative of Tokyo. It fully dismisses all of the great multi-layerisms and cross cultural absorptions and influences that make Tokyo the most fascinating city on the planet. One has to wonder if Mr. Bender was unwilling to stray to far from his hotel or comfortable settings in order to experience the real Tokyo. Even if his article is geared toward the ex-pat budget he has certainly robbed them of much that makes the former capital of Edo so very great. His writing is quite nice but the narrow scope of his focus eliminated nearly all of what should have been experienced.

  10. sears scratch and dent Says:
    July 1st, 2010 at 5:18 am

    Interesting variants) Most of all I liked the idea of the bridge)) way, I noticed – the more I visit your site, the more I have an idea – how to reformulate their projects))

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  11. Crystal Meek Says:
    December 29th, 2010 at 2:15 am

    Japan the interesting country, as well as many other things it is interesting by the architecture, culture, cookery. As in it are interesting fighting art. There very friendly people, and their tradition to spend physical culture before the beginning of the working day to me very much were pleasant

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