The 5 Star Hotel in Japan

The Google Office in Tokyo is located on one of the lower floors of the Cerulean Hotel and Towers, just a short walk from the Shibuya station. They had a reduced rate for Googlers and since the company was paying for it, we decided to stay in this five star hotel for 8 nights (the week William worked in Tokyo).

View of the lobby, complete with its own rock garden.

We particularly loved the cherry blossom centerpiece in the lobby

We have stayed at a 5 star hotel once before at the Four Seasons in Sydney but there were some unique elements to a mixed Japanese and Western style five star hotel. One of the first things we noticed was a large plate of fresh fruit including a mango, kiwi, grapes, apple, and an orange. We received a nice note welcoming us to the hotel (in English) and informing us that we should call down to the hotel if we wanted someone to cut our fruit for us. Yes, one of their staff members would have come up to our room and cut our fruit for us if we would have asked them (which we did n0t). That is service to a whole new level for me.

As I would later discover, the room itself was HUGE for Japan- especially the bathroom. The bathroom had lots of counterspace, a full bathtub, separate shower, packaged toiletries like a hairbrush, and a fancy toilet. The toilet has a heated seat (which I am actually do like, provided it is in my own quarters) complete with rinsing and drying functions. The Google office in Mountain View has these as well so I was already familiar with them. I also learned that most Japan hotels are big on the "Lucy and Ricky Ricardo" beds as I call them- two separate little twin beds and no single queen or kings. We finally got a queen bed at our last hotel in Kyoto where we stayed for 5 nights. The other two hotels we stayed in also had the separate beds. But the beds in our 5 star hotel were the HARDEST beds I have EVER slept on in my life. William, who served his mission for two years in Tokyo, said that his threadbare futon was more comfortable than these beds. Our most comfortable bed was the last bed, the queen one in Kyoto, which was also the least expensive hotel we stayed in.

But we had the most INCREDIBLE view from this room of the city, including Tokyo Tower- the yellowish orange building on the right, similar in structure to the Eiffel Tower.

All in all, given the view and the location of the hotel was unbeatable, especially since William only had to go down a few floors to work, and it was quite close to one of the main train and subway stations, making it convenient for us to travel around the city. But, we were glad that we weren't paying for it :-)