June 13-14, 1971: Kyoto, Japan
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For this, my second trip to Japan, I had to pay for the flight to Tokyo, but when you consider that it was only about $35 (I would think that the accounting for such a small sum would outweigh the income the Army gets) the cost was hardly onerous. I'd used my one free flight in January when I came over to Japan with Dan Gunn.

The flight we took in January was a night flight, but this time it was an afternoon departure, so I had one of my drivers take me down to Kimpo and by five in the afternoon I was in the air leaving Korea. So this time I was able to get some good views out the airpane window.

I have just taken off from Kimpo, and we have left the city behind us as we prepare to make a turn around to the East. This is part of the Han River delta.

We are turning around now, and will be coming back over the southern part of Seoul City.

This is some of the ourskirts of Seoul to the west of the city.

As we pass south of Seoul, now, you can see the Han River, and the long green swath of Namsan Mountain. You can also see the much higher mountains north of the city. Howze is out of view to the upper left.

This is the Eastern coast of Korea, somewhat north of Pusan.

I haven't flown much in my life, and so I was pretty much glued to the window all the way to Yokota Air Base where we had landed once before.

The flight to Tokyo is about three hours, and since we had left Seoul late in the afternoon, by the time we got over the island of Honshu, the sun had set and the picture-taking opportunities pretty much gone.

Having been here before, I knew the drill. I changed out of my uniform at the Yokota Officer's Club and left it in the check room. I had a bit of supper there at the OOM, and then made my way into Fussa to catch the train into Tokyo.

The train ride was just as easy and quick as I remembered it, and I knew just where to change to the Tokyo subway to arrive at the station near the Sanno at about eleven pm.

I walked to the Sanno with no problem, found my reservation in order, and, shortly before midnight was in my single room for the night. Since it was late, I decided to get right to bed.

I planned on spending two days in Tokyo, but when I got all my errands done on the 12th, I decided to book my first out-of-Tokyo trip for the very next day.

I had a bit of shopping to do for myself, and I'd also promised one of my cashiers that I would make a trip to the Akai Electronics company out by the airport to pick up some tape recorded accessories that he could not get through the PX.

So one trip would be to take the monorail out towards the airport again to the Akai Company, and also take the train to the Yokohama Naval Base BX to get the other electronics I needed for myself. get a tape recorder part for a friend from the Akai Company, out near the airport.

I was up and out of the Sanno before nine. I could have started earlier, but based on our experiences in January thought it best to let the Japanese have their rush hour all to themselves.

Stepping outside the Sanno and then walking down to the end of the street, I am on a main avenue that leads to the two nearby subway stations. Down at the end of this avenue is the Hotel New Otani.

Construction of the hotel was requested by the Japanese government in the early 1960s, in order to fill a perceived shortage of hotel space for foreign visitors to the upcoming 1964 Summer Olympics. Yonetaro Otani, a former sumo wrestler who founded and ran a small steel company, agreed to build the hotel on a site he owned.

The 1,085-room hotel was built in seventeen months using a number of techniques that were revolutionary in Japan at the time, such as curtain walls and prefabricated unit bathrooms. The 400-year-old garden on the site was retained as part of the hotel. The hotel opened as The New Otani on 1 September 1964, to coincide with the Olympics the following month.

The New Otani was the tallest building in Tokyo from 1964 until 1968. It took on an iconic status during this period, particularly for its unique revolving restaurant on the highest floor. During this time, the building was a filming location for the 1967 James Bond film You Only Live Twice, where it appeared as the headquarters of Osato Chemical & Engineering Co Ltd, the Japanese front for Ernst Stavro Blofeld's SPECTRE organization. In a reference to the three Edo era branch houses of the Tokugawa clan, the Imperial Hotel, Hotel Okura Tokyo, and Hotel New Otani Tokyo are often referred to as the three "Great Hotels of Tokyo".

Dan and I had ridden the monorail to the airport back in January, so I knew which subway station to head to to get that same monorail to get down to the Akai Corporation building.

Here is the view ahead along the monorail track towards Tokyo airport. I took a few more pictures this time, as I remember many of the ones I took in January being a little fuzzy.

This is the Tokyo Raceway, near the airport.

I was able to find the Akai offices with little problem, and when I brought out the information about the equipment that I needed I was able to complete the transaction and have the stuff shipped back to Korea. The whole transaction took about an hour, after which I returned to Tokyo.

I spent the day wandering around the city of Tokyo. It reminded me of Seoul, of course, except that it was like a Seoul after another ten years of updating and modernization. In place of dirt back streets lined with open cookers and stands selling every manner of good, Tokyo has more typical broad avenues with smaller streets and alleyways in the spaces bounded by them. All the streets and alleyways were lined with little shops and restaurants as well as bigger stores. I saw very little in the way of temporary stands and eating establishments.

In the evening, I took the short subway ride over to Shinjuku. The area surrounding Shinjuku Station is a major economic hub of Tokyo, and Shinjuku is one of the major entertainment areas in the city of Tokyo. Here one can find restaurants of all size and cuisine, bars and nightclubs, and of course a great many businesses selling electronics, books and magazines, and clothing. The area is also dotted with the ubiquitous patchinko parlors.

I stopped in to one of these small restaurants for a noodle bowl dinner, and I prevailed on another patron who actually spoke to me first in English, to take my photograph. (Not the best, but selfie sticks are still a good many years in the future.)

After dinner, I wandered around the area for quite a while, just taking it all in. I tried my hand at a few night shots of the neon displays in Shinjuku, and a couple of them turned out.

I did not want to stay out too late, because I'd made the decision to head out of Tokyo to the Imperial Capital of Kyoto tomorrow, and I had to be up early to make arrangements for my stay there for the next two days.

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	June 13-14, 1971: Kyoto, Japan
	Return to the Index for the Japan Trip