Quiet and intimate, Four Seasons Hotel Tokyo offers relaxation in the city
With its boutique feel and personal touch, this Tokyo hotel stands apart from the five-star pack, writes Graeme Green
Located in the heart of the Japanese capital, Tokyo Station looks in good shape for a building that will celebrate its 100th birthday next year. Especially so, considering it was heavily bombed during the second world war, and has 380 million pairs of feet trample through it every year. The station benefited from a five-year renovation, which ended last year and returned it to its former glory.
Of the 400,000 businessmen, workers and tourists who pass through the station each day, a few navigate the many exits and check into the Four Seasons Hotel Tokyo, just outside the station in the thriving business and shopping district of Marunouchi.
Many of Tokyo's five-star hotels are giants consuming the higher floors of the city's skyscrapers. Four Seasons is smaller, and feels more like an arty boutique hotel than anonymous city property. Helpful staff, all of whom speak flawless English, know my name within minutes of arriving.
The hotel has also had a recent facelift, though it's less extensive than the station's. The furniture in the guest rooms has been refurbished, and a few walls have been knocked through to make more connecting rooms.
The hotel interior is modern. Corridors are painted cream with a bold, sleek black gloss on rooms' outer walls and doors. Colourful abstract paintings hang on the walls.
I head straight for the hotel's version of a traditional Japanese (hot springs), a dark, quiet room with a big black slate hot tub, the water perfectly heated to ease any aches or stresses, while a clock of light shining on the wall above counts down the minutes to a massage.
