Hotel: Shibuya Excel Hotel Tokyu

Back to Contents of Issue: July 2000

by Daniel Scuka and Chieko Tashiro

Shibuya Excel Hotel Tokyu
1-12-2 Dogenzaka
Shibuya-ku, Tokyo 150-0043
Tel: +81-3-5457-0109/Fax: +81-3-5457-0309[bilingual reservation desk]
www.tokyu.co.jp/inn [Japanese]
Prices: rooms start at ¥15,000

Visiting Tokyo? Hope you're not staying at some stuffy hotel in Otemachi, or paying too much in Ginza. Those places are so 10-years-ago. The place to stay now is the new Excel Hotel Tokyu, right in the heart of Bit Valley and a 60-second walk to Shibuya station. With 400-plus rooms, it's made with the digerati in mind: "We have 120 rooms on our business traveler floors that provide 10-Mbps Web connections," says assistant general manager Hisaya Tsubaki. If you lose your laptop, the hotel will lend you an NEC notebook for a nominal ¥ 1,000 per night.

The hotel has a bilingual reception desk and welcomes foreign visitors. "We have a bus that comes in direct from Narita," says Tsubaki, "and we'd like to see 10 percent of our guests coming from overseas." The hotel also provides a nonsmoking floor (not just rooms) and several floors exclusively for female travelers (with restricted key card access).

The atmosphere is laid back yet sophisticated. "Shibuya is a casual place," notes Tsubaki, "and we want our hotel to reflect that." The adult sensibility serves as a nice antidote to the goofier, teenage side of Shibuya, which is, sadly for Bit Valley starups, point zero for the kogyaru scene (white lipsticks, platform boots -- - you've seen the pictures).

The Mark City complex provides a dizzying selection of upscale yet casual restaurants, sushi bars, cafes, et cetera. Try the popular-for-a reason sushi resutanrant Midori, if the line isn't bad. Le Café Bleu will make visiting Parisians feel at home. Le Connaisseur cigar shop has more than 100 varieties of ha maki, as they're called here (and smoking isn't frowned upon at all in Japan). Cooking entertainment can be found at Mano Magio's, where chefs entertain your eyes and ears before satisfying your hunger.

Next, just for fun, try to check out all of Mark City's shops without getting lost. You won't succeed, but it's impossible to visit Tokyo without losing your sense of direction anyway

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