the claska is newly refur­bished but pre­serves the vaguely 60s — 70s retro pas­tiche of its orig­i­nal con­cep­tion. it’s a lot of fun to stay here. a very quirky place, with ‘Mr Dog’ the dog salon on the ground floor. a dj play­ing elec­tro funk mixes in the evening, a great selec­tion of design mag­a­zines in the lobby library, with a craft shop on the eighth floor, and a gar­den­ing shop on the roof ter­race which affords great views of the tokyo sky­line in one direc­tion and

(if you’re lucky with the weather) a stun­ning view of mount fuji in the other. the staff here all look like mod­els and are unfail­ingly eager to please. google ‘claska, meguro’ if you’re going to visit the hypermetropolis.

alas. gone are the lit­tle robot dogs ‘aibo’ in each room. the hotel has changed hands since my last stay and the pre­vi­ous own­ers took their aibos with them. actu­ally it was a bit spooky with that dog. after a lit­tle while you start to think they’re like real dogs. i used to won­der what it got up to while i was asleep.

it was great jump­ing on the elec­tro cycles and ter­ror­is­ing the local pedes­tri­ans (it’s quite nor­mal to cycle on the pave­ments in japan, although i’ve been told it’s quite ille­gal, just like the uk, but here in japan, no one seems to mind. per­haps it’s the absence of lycra-clad self-righteous psy­chos hurtling along like they’re try­ing out for the tour de france.)