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Lost in Belle Salle Shinjuku
honestly the biggest time sink there is trying to figure out which entrance to use. the ground floor has like three different lobbies and they all look the same. if you come in from the south side near the shinjuku park tower you'll hit the staff entrance first, wasted 10 minutes there myself. look for the big glass atrium with the escalators going up, that's the main one. also the wifi is solid but the conference app maps are kinda laggy, i just screenshot the floor plan on my phone and zoom in when i need it. bathrooms on the 3rd floor are usually less crowded than the ones near the main halls
The main trick is that Belle Salle Ground has multiple buildings. The Ground building itself is the one with the big glass entrance on the east side of the complex. If you come out of Tochomae Station (Edo Subway line) and walk straight, you'll hit the Grand Hyatt first. That's not it. Pass the hotel and look for the tower with the "Belle Salle" sign. Inside, the conference rooms are numbered by floor, and the elevators are color-coded. The red ones go to floors 1-5, the blue ones to 6-10. Saves you from waiting for the wrong bank.
one thing nobody mentioned is the building's weird numbering system. the ground floor is actually labeled as "1F" but the conference halls start at "2F" and some breakout rooms skip numbers entirely. i almost walked into a supply closet marked "room 201" last year. if you're going between sessions, take the stairs near the central atrium, they're way faster than waiting for those elevators during peak times. also grab a coffee at the little stand by the park entrance before things get busy, the line there is half the wait of the main lobby spots
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Where can I find crispy, pan-fried bacon similar to a certain international style?
if u have a costco membership the kirkland thick cut is the move, 4 packs of 500g for around 2500 yen and it crisps up proper in a cold pan. for smaller runs, precce in azabudai hills & the basement at isetan shinjuku both carry imported US & danish brands in the chilled case, just read the label for "thick cut" or "smoked" and not "loin". also worth knowing japanese bacon is often wet-cured so pat it dry before frying or it steams instead of crisping
kaldi coffee farm is hit or miss but their smoked bacon from denmark shows up pretty regular, the 200g pack runs about 600 yen. what actually works better for me is asking the butcher counter at peacock or life to slice the block bacon thick, like 5mm, they do it for free and it crisps way better than the pre-packed stuff. also fwiw cheap bacon crisps faster, the fatty supermarket kind at 300 yen a pack works fine if u cook it from cold in a dry pan and pour off the fat as it renders.
tbh the gyomu super store brand bacon is surprisingly decent for crisping up, its not thick cut but if you cook it low and slow it gets pretty crunchy. the key is the dry cure vs wet cure thing, wet cure steams. also check hanamasa if you have one nearby, they sell big packs of american style bacon thats actually smoked and firm.