Just two short days in Tokyo.
Came to a Nakau for breakfast.
Don't remember how much this spread cost but it certainly wasn't much more than 700 yen, and it tasted better than the Moxy breakfast.
There seemed to be some event going on at the Tokyo Dome. Lots of people lining up, many in cosplay.
I had never done any of the teamLab things in all my trips, so I finally bit the bullet and decided to come see what the fuss was about.
Honestly I thought it was fine. Quite over-stimulating, but I found it to be a fun art installation. I went in mostly blind (I didn't even know there was a section you needed to take your shoes off for and get in the water until after I booked my ticket) and I thought it was cool enough, but I can totally see how this is exactly the type of thing that can be wildly overhyped on the internet, especially by someone with better camera skills than me. If you like weird trippy art installations, this is a pretty cool one, but if you don't, I don't think this will change your mind.
And with that, my time in Tokyo came to an end. Next stop Fukuoka, and a handful of luxury hotel redemptions, including the Ritz Carlton Fukuoka, the Ritz Carlton Kyoto, and the Shisui Luxury Collection.
A crowded early morning monorail ride later, I arrived at Haneda airport.
This is baffling. Inexplicably, JAL seems to also think I am still Sapphire. This has to be a screw-up on Alaska's part, then, right? You think they'd let me into the lounge with my boarding pass?
Well it worked at the priority security line. I bought a snack and beverage before passing through security as I had just learned you can bring liquids through domestic security in Japan.
Let's try my luck at the lounge. I confidently walked in and just plopped my boarding pass onto the scanner...
I can't believe it worked. What is going on here? Why does everyone think I'm still Sapphire?
As per usual, the domestic Sakura lounge had no food and only very limited beverage choices.
So I munched on my own FamilyMart breakfast while enjoying the views.
I think that's my plane.
And soon, it was time to witness Japan's lightning fast boarding.
Japan Airlines JL 307: HND – FUK
Airbus A350-900, JA07XJ
6/16/2025 8:00 JST – 9:55 JST
Economy Class, 45K (window)
I booked myself in an exit row window seat. Unless JAL's domestic 787s, their A350 fleet has the window line up with the seat.
It's subtle, but if you look very closely, you'll notice I have a bit more legroom here than on the Spring Airlines flight.
Soon we pushed back and the safety video played. I always think JAL's video is a bit too sterile and uninteresting, but apparently it did its job for JL 516, so who am I to complain?
Free Wifi is always appreciated. It doesn't connect until we're at cruising altitude.
With a picturesque climb, we were out of Tokyo.
I had picked a seat on the right side of the plane with the hopes of seeing Mt. Fuji.
As such, the pilots decided to be really funny this morning.
I snuck over to the left side emergency exit to see if I could peep out the window, but saw nothing.
Ah well, at least I could drown my sorrows in the best beverage in the sky, JAL's sky-time peach grape sugar water thing.
Welcome to Fukuoka.
This is my first time in Fukuoka. I didn't have anything I wanted to do here to be honest - I was originally going to fly straight to Hiroshima. But then I saw I could spend a night at the new Ritz Carlton here with a 50k FNA, and I couldn't resist, since flights were the same price going to Fukuoka or Hiroshima.
There's no way this is the pedestrian entrance, is it?
It was.
Check-in was smooth and polished. They took my bags downstairs, then showed me into the elevators up to the lobby level. There, I was invited to sit on the couch while the front desk associates took my passport and did all the paperwork for me. My room wasn't quite ready yet, so they gave me a time to come back, when I could pick up my keys.
When I came back, I had gotten caught in a sudden torrential downpour, and despite having my rain jacket on, I was not wearing my rain pants and was still pretty soaked.
Luckily, my room was ready.
My bags were already waiting for me in the room, of course.
You can tell it's a five star hotel because the bathroom is completely transparent (to be fair, during turndown service, they did pull closed some shutters that offered a bit of privacy inside the bathroom).
The view outside got progressively better as the rain cloud passed.
Some pictures from the elevator and lobby area.
I don't think my phone did justice to how gorgeous this sunset looked from the room (by the way you can click on any image to see the higher resolution version; I'm using lower resolution previews because otherwise the images are too big to comfortably scroll through on my computer).
And that's about all I have for this hotel. I don't get breakfast even as an elite at Ritz properties, and I sure wasn't paying $50 for breakfast. Also, this hotel charges for the pool. They told me as checkin that as a Titanium, they'd waive the pool fee for me, but this must be the first hotel I'd ever stayed at where the pool cost money. The Bonvoy program is really innovating the hotel experience, huh?
The other problem is that I could hear the cars on the street, even 25 stories up. I was under the impression that this was a very new building. It's honestly devestating to me that they couldn't be bothered to properly insulate the building from outside sound when building it, because it's not like they can easily go in and add a second pane of glass now, and as a light sleeper, it ruins an otherwise beautiful property for me. I'm happy to suck it up and pop in some ear plugs when I'm paying $125 a night, but when cash rates are easily $500+, I can't grade this hotel on a curve. A clean, quiet, and dark sleeping environment should be bare minimum table stakes that I expect from a roadside Fairfield Inn, much less a brand new Ritz Carlton. I don't think I can ever justify coming back to this property, which is heartbreaking because, look how pretty it is.
Some other photos around Fukuoka:
