Living The Good Life

This has been a month of excess in which I've been living the good life. First Tomoe and I went out for dinner on Dad's credit card, spending 3 times more than we ever would have, and now Friday night we got a chance to spend the night in one of Tokyo's most expensive hotels, The New Otani. Once you get over the wastefulness of it all, the enormous amounts of energy it must take each year to heat and light such a huge building, all the cheap (in quality) disposable toiletry goods that going to the landfills each year, it is clear that there is really nothing to it. Without all that it would just be a campground.

It's always interesting to see though how the other half lives though. In this case, Seb was staying there on his company's expense account, and we missed our last train so forced him to sleep on the floor of his own room.

Everyone hears how crowded Tokyo is, and how small peoples apartments are, and how space is such a rare commodity. It is of course with 5444 people/km², but when you see hotels like this, it's hard to feel sorry for Tokyo. It's really amazing to see how huge this place was, and how much empty space was wasted to achieve an illusion of quality. How any four member households living in a tiny, cramped apartment complex could benefit for a more well thought out city plan that actually uses space like that.

I can't complain about everything though. I did get a great view of the Tokyo's light pollution.

There is very serious talk now of going to Spain in May for Seb's wedding... Time to start researching campgrounds.