Minato and Asakusa

November 24, 2012 (Saturday) -- InterContinental Tokyo Bay and Asakusa

After a restful night, we enjoyed a great buffet breakfast at the Hilton. That is one of the benefits as Hilton Honor Gold. It was a little crowded in the restaurant but it was still a good breakfast with both western and Japanese offerings.

We wanted to find out how much it will cost us to take a taxi from Hilton to the InterContinental Tokyo Bay. The concierge told us it should be around 10,000 yen and the receptionist told us probably around 15,000. We figured with the luggage and everything we should just bite it and take the taxi. The total cost for a taxi ended up only 3860 yen, not a bad deal after all for a door-to-door service.

This InterContinental is probably one of the smaller ones in their brand but it is still an excellent hotel. We traded in our Priority Club points for two nights stay here. The location might not be desirable for people who want all the action and night life but it fitted us just fine. Our room had an excellent view of the Sky Tree and the river, very pretty day and night. It is walking distance to the JR station and the metro. We also walked to the Tokyo Tower from here with no problem. This was our "home" for two nights.

The Sky Tree is in the distance. A small corner of the Hama-Rikyu Garden can also be seen on the left.

across from the hotel

Outside the hotel is a promenade where ferries dock.

The Rainbow Bridge on the other side.

Exterior of the InterContinental.

Tokyo Tower sneaking through between buildings.

Kind of like Avenue of the Stars in Hong Kong.

Boat ride to Asakusa

There are party cruises here also and many weddings were taking place that day.

We then walked to the Hama-Rikyu Garden, passed the Four Seasons Theater.

a skinny building

The Conrad across from the garden.

Tea House

girl in kimono

Just a beautiful and peaceful place.

We took the last boat leaving the garden to Asakusa at around 4:30pm.

It was crowded but we were able to find seats at the bottom deck.

As the many people getting off the boat at the stop near the InterContinental we were able to find seats on the top deck.

Looking at InterContinental from the boat.

passing under about 12 different bridges of various designs before reaching Asakusa

This was what we saw when we got off the boat in Asakusa.

Entrance to the temple

We found a little restaurant for dinner near the entrance.

Good and inexpensive

It was a little after 7:00pm and the vendors were already closing down their shops.

This stall sells these delicious sweets shown below.

Before going back to the hotel we went to a noodle shop and tried their famous soy sauce ramen.

Taking the subway back to Minato.

Daimon Station