By Jim Frederick

Posted Monday, June 27, 2005; 20:00 HKT
With its dearth of parkland, frequent absence of sidewalks and maddening, labyrinthine layout, Tokyo is one of the world's worst cities to run in. But thanks to the Park Hyatt hotel, it is a marvelous metropolis to run above. Located in a soaring, 47th-floor rooftop atrium, atop one of architect Kenzo Tange's most iconic skyscrapers, the hotel's health club features six Life Fitness treadmills pushed to the vertiginous edge of 20-m-tall picture windows. As you climb on one and hit the start button, the sprawling cityscape of the world's most populous urban agglomeration spreads before you as an awe-inspiring, almost abstract object of heart-wrenching beauty. Highways and rivers intersect like rivulets of light, while patches of color—each one an illuminated city block—pulsate like flashing panels on a cosmic dance floor. Those who equate treadmills (or elliptical trainers, for that matter) with drudgery have obviously never been to the Park Hyatt Tokyo—except in Lost in Translation with Bill Murray, above. Because to those who have, the phrase "post-workout high" will never sound the same again.

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