HT & Linda, have a great time. We'll miss you in Boston. Have some sake for me and Eric. Say hi to Lucy and Ken.

Hope you and linda have a great trip, ht.

Please try to post from the road, otherwise we will have to wait at least a month!

A little late, but have a great trip. Still would like to go that route if my tour director get on it. Karen

laurie, we will have a few for you and eric. at least this place doesn't have any paper windows. lol.

Thanks everyone. I am up early(4:30)so am tapping this out on my iPhone which works fine here in Japan btw.
Flew in yesterday on a very full flight. As Linda and I walked into the check in gate about ten minutes before we were supposed to board we hear our names paged and walled ip to the desk to be handed new boarding passes and told that were upgraded to business class because the flight was overbooked and they needed our seats in economy plus.......no problem. Then just as we are sitting down and enjoying our new found luck another announcment is made......."ladies and gentlemen if you take a look behind you at our aircraft you will see that the engine covers are off as the mechanics are changing a generator.....should only be a couple of hours"
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Well it did only delay us for two hours so we went back to the Red Carpet room till they were done,lol

We are now in The Westin Tokyo in another upgraded room(gold member)with a fantastic view of Tokyo Tower and the Tokyo skyline. The rooms are huge for Tokyo and just how emd described them. I chuckled a little as I first saw our huge bathroom and remembered her trip report about how she would plan her days itinerary while her son was still asleep,lol

enough tapping for now

Love those upgrades, HT. A good beginning to the trip in spite of the delay!

Great start with the upgrades HT! Please report as often as possible as we will be doing a similar trip soon.

Have fun!

The little cigar lounge in that hotel has an excellent selection of Cuban cigars.

The concierge there gave me a great tip on a sushi place on a corner near to Ebisu station.

Good job with the road report.

Flew Air Do from Haneda to Asahikawa on Hokkaido today. Great service from the flight attendants on Air Do, no comparison to the US carriers. In the Haneda airport waiting lounge we witnessed the service people actually running back and forth from the check in area to the gates with people that were late in boarding carrying the customer's carry on bags for them, simply amazing. Can you imagine a United or any other American airlines service agents running ahead of you from the check in to the gate carrying your bag for you just to get you there on time for the flight? No way,lol. One of the things I love about Japan.

As we flew into Asahikawa we saw that indeed the fall colors have started in areas around Asahikawa and nearby Mt Asahidake. We are ensconsed in the Asahikawa Terminal Hotel which is connected to the main Asahikawa JR station. Nice twin room for 8900 yen which includes breakfast and free internet. The main street leading from the station is a huge shopping dori which is closed to vehicular traffic and ripe with restaurants,bars and of course a multitude of stores sellings everything from clothes to authentic Ainu carvings and trinkets to the delight of Mrs. HT. We have already done round one and will do round two this evening after our dinner which will be at a local crab restaurant we saw on our little jaunt this afternoon. We have noticed that we are the only tourists who are not Japanese in this town which is second in population on Hokkaido. We were also the only non Japanese on our plane.....well Linda was as I am half Japanese,lol.

Tomorrow we pick up our rent a car from the JR rental at the train station and head off to the Shiretoko Peninsula and around Hokkaido for the next 7 days. You can get a good discount on the rental if you have any kind of JR Hokkaido rail pass which we happen to have(4 day flexi). Found out about the special from AmandaH who edits Fodors Hokkaido section of their Japan guide book and is also the moderator of the Hokkaido forum on the TA site.

Well I am now being paged to get ready for dinner so got to go for now. Will try to report from either Lake Akan or Sounkyo Onsen.

Aloha!

Do yourself a favor and try the noodles at Asahikawa station - there's a little cafe with plastic food displays right near the bathrooms. So good I had them twice!!! And they were like 400Y per bowl.

It sounds wonderful, HT.

I had a good laugh visualizing United "service agents running ahead of you from the check in to the gate carrying your bag for you just to get you there on time for the flight."

Wonderful, keep it coming. Have fun!

Just back from China. Have a great time in Japan. The colors here in New England get a few leaf peepers as well.

Tapping this on my iPhone as no Internet in ryokan on beautiful Lake Akan where koto is in full swing. Buttoning everything up here for typhoon that is hitting Japan now. Any info is appreciated as can't get full details on all Japanese stations here.

Aloha!

Koyo

Yes, the weather sounds bad...
Japan braces for Typhoon Melor

By North Asia correspondent Mark Willacy

Posted 1 hour 30 minutes ago

A strong typhoon with wind gusts of more than 210 kilometres per hour is forecast to hit the main Japanese island of Honshu this morning.

Typhoon Melor has caused the cancellation of more than 200 flights in western Japan and knocked out power to more than 10,000 homes in the southern islands.

Melor could also dump up to 50 centimetres of rain and is tipped to be the first major typhoon to hit the densely population main island of Honshu in two years.

Japan's weather bureau has issued high-wave warnings and there are fears of flash floods and landslides.

Another story I found indicated that there is a weaker tropical storm over the Philippines :

There's double-trouble in the Western Pacific with one typhoon and one tropical storm bringing soaking rains, dangerous surf and gusty winds to two different locations. Typhoon Melor is affecting the east coast of Japan and watches and warnings are up today. Further south, Tropical Storm Parma continues to rain on Luzon in the northern Philippines.

Typhoon Melor is currently affecting southern Japan and bringing gusty winds, heavy rains and high waves there. High Wave and Gale Watches and warnings have been posted in Japan in the prefectures of Miyazaki and Kagoshima today.

At 11 a.m. EDT, Typhoon Melor had sustained winds near 75 knots (86 mph). It was located 350 nautical miles southwest of Tokyo, Japan, near 32.7 North and 135.4 East. Melor is moving northeast near 25 knots (28 mph) and is generating 30-foot high waves. At 11 a.m. EDT, the storm was almost due south of the city of Wakayama.

Keep dry!

Typhoon is expected to make landfall on Thursday according to Japan Times. I just checked weather.com that forcasts several inches of rain and wind for Hokkaido in the next 36 hours. I chatted with a friend in Tokyo last night who was heading out for provisions and they seem to be taking this seriously. Be safe.

hope you guys are ok....i see it now....sitting in the hyatt some place drinking champagne....let us know

Thank you all for the info and thoughts. I hope lcuy and Milt are ok in Hakone. The Tokkaido Shinkansen has been stopped this morning and I know they were going to catch it today back to Tokyo.

No Bob, not champagne, it is a French white bordeaux lol
I will report in later

Aloha!

we are expecting her here on friday for lunch....we'll see