More on Love Hotels, the conference, and a $250 bowl of Ramen
Ended up staying in a Love Hotel again Tuesday night. Tuesday afternoon I talked to friends and compared hotel prices, and no doubt the Love Hotel was the cheapest option. Excluding of course Internet cafes, but I wanted a bed and shower. Oh, and also excluding getting a package deal with plane tickets and hotel included. That is by far the cheapest option, and that is what most of my friends did, but since I bought my plane tickets at the last minute, I messed that one up (see previous couple posts).
So back to the Love Hotel. The lady at the front desk was somewhat disturbed to see me coming in for a second night, and tried to explain to me that it was not a business hotel. But I went through my speech about being willing to pay the same money as the other customers, and she gave me the room.
Wednesday afternoon the conference finished up. At the end of the last speaker, a friend of mine summed up the whole conference by saying, “these past few days have certainly given me a lot to think about, but no answers.” That’s how I feel about the whole thing to. Still just as confused about life as when I entered, but I do have a lot more to think about now. There was actually a lot of information presented at the conference, but I won’t bore you by going in to it.
Between when the conference finished on Wednesday afternoon, and when my plane left on Wednesday night, I did have a few hours to kill. As I mentioned in a previous post, this conference was the second time I had been in Tokyo area. The first time was for JET orientation, during which I didn’t get an opportunity to sight see. Now this time was shaping up much the same way, with only a few hours to go “see Tokyo”.
Left to myself, I would have probably just wasted these few hours. So when a friend of mine approached me to see if I wanted to go into Tokyo to get some “famous ramen”, I agreed. I’m not a huge ramen fan, but his idea was certainly better than my idea of doing nothing.
Ramen, although originally a Chinese food, is very popular in Japan. In fact, within Japan there exists a sub-culture of “ramen pilgrims” or people in search of the perfect bowl of ramen.
Apparently there is a certain ramen restaurant in the downtown area that is widely agreed upon to have the best ramen in Tokyo. My friend was very keen on checking it out. I had nothing better to do, and at least this way I would get to see a little of downtown Tokyo.
By the time we had navigated our way through the mess that is the Tokyo train station, and had found the ramen shop in question, we were already a little pressed for time. My friend more so than I. His flight was scheduled to leave and hour and a half before mine. But we did the math, and decided we still had time to enjoy a bowl of ramen.
There was a line outside the door, and roughly a 45-minute wait to even get inside the place. After waiting in the line, we got inside and were served a bowl of ramen. And, to be fair, it was a decent tasting bowl of ramen. Probably not the best I’ve ever tasted, but then I’m no conessiuor.
Afterwards we made our way back to the train station. It was now 4:30, getting close to rush hour in Tokyo, and the train station was already beginning to get pretty crowded. As we boarded the train, my friend began to realize he was probably going to miss his plane. As we took the train through the middle of Tokyo, stopping at every station along the way, it became apparent he was definitely going to miss his plane.
I have to confess I sometimes take pleasure in other people’s misfortunes. It makes me feel better about myself. I think to myself, “I may be a disorganized idiot, but at least I’m going to make my plane flight.” It should be noted that my friend had gotten a package deal on his plane tickets. He got plane tickets and a nice hotel for in total about $100 less than I paid for just my plane tickets alone. And then I had to wander the streets of Yokohama sleeping in shady Love Hotels.
So, I began to make smart aleck comments like, “Well, at least that was one tasty bowl of ramen, huh?” or “If you had to do it again, would you still wait in line for that ramen?”
In the end, my friend missed the flight. Since it was a packaged deal, he couldn’t use the same ticket on a later flight. Last I saw him, he had to buy a new ticket, costing the equivalent of $250. Which, I believe, makes this a record for the most expensive bowl of ramen ever. If anyone has a story about a more expensive bowl of ramen, let me know, but I think this is going to be hard to beat.