I am a last minute packer, but that doesn’t mean I’m unprepared. I got just about everything I needed packed the night before. The morning of the trip, Wednesday, April 3rd, I woke up around 7:45 am to shower and get ready. My flight was scheduled to depart Sea-Tac Airport at 12:20 pm, but since it’s an international flight, I wanted to be there three hours early. I’m glad I did because the security screening lines were super long. I waited at least 40 minutes to get through it.
Waiting for the shuttle to N Gates.
After Big Brother took a look at me, I made my way to the United Club lounge in satellite N. I’ve read reviews for this lounge saying that it wasn’t that great, and while I might understand that type of reaction from people who go to these places all of the time, I thought it was quite lovely. I grabbed some bagels, pastries, cereal, and juice for breakfast and did a little blogging and social networking. It was comfy and quiet. Much rather be here than in the noisy and busy terminal.
Inside the Sea-Tac United Club lounge.
U.S. Customs stopped folks from boarding the plane half-way through for some reason. They eventually let us continue. When I was in the skyway, I saw Customs agents laying out thousands and thousands of U.S. dollars on the floor with some Japanese folks looking kind of worried. Not sure what was happening, but it seemed pretty exciting. We were late to push back from the gate because of this, but not too bad. We were still scheduled to land on time.
Our Boeing 777 ready for us to board.
The airplane we were on was a Boeing 777 (read about my excitement with the cancellation of my ANA Boeing 787 flight here), which had a 2-5-2 seating arrangement in economy class. I chose a window seat for this flight, and my return trip. I typically prefer aisle seats, except when I am flying to somewhere new, like this day. There were two hot meals served on the flight. For dinner, I had beef with spinach mashed potatoes and a chocolate butterscotch brownie. Breakfast was yakisoba noodles with potstickers, potato chips, and Knott's shortbread cookies. Talk about carb city and a weird combination! You get your own little video screen on this flight and there was a decent amount of movies and shows to choose from, but they were on a looping schedule rather than being able to start and stop whenever you wanted. The first movie I watched was Quartet. Really weird pacing, but charming in its own right. The next movie I watched was The Details. That movie is just plain bizarre. Creative in some parts, but mostly misses.
About halfway through, I struck up a conversation with the person sitting next to me. Turns out, she was in the U.S. Navy and was flying through Tokyo while getting deployed to a ship in Singapore. Since I served in the Air Force, we had a lot to talk about, as well as our love for music and movies. I asked her if she was getting deployed due to the increased concern over North Korea. She wasn't sure (or wouldn't tell me), but I bet that was why. North Korea possibly attacking Japan was always way in the back of my mind, but I wasn't too worried. While they've always stated that Tokyo would be the first place they'd attack, I doubt they're ready.
On the way to immigration.
It didn’t hit me that I was in Japan when I got to the airport like I thought it would. Getting through immigration and customs took 30 minutes. My suitcases were already off of the carousel and waiting for me on the floor by the time I got through it. The first thing I needed to do was exchange some money. Then I made my way over to the post office and picked up my pocket WiFi that I had rented. Let me just take a few seconds and say that renting a pocket WiFi through Global Advanced Communications was just about one of the best decisions I made for this trip. Being connected to the Internet 24/7 was a blessing, not only because I could make Skype video calls to home whenever I wanted, but if I got lost or needed to look up information, I could easily do so without having to search for a free hotspot. I highly recommend this for anyone visiting Japan.
The long line outside of the JR East Travel Service Center.
Alright, so after messaging Bethany back home that I got to Japan safely, I had to go exchange my Japan Rail Pass. Japan has this great deal for foreigners where they pay one price to ride just about any JR train for one, two, or three weeks. The Japanese would kill for a deal like this as just a round trip ride from Tokyo to Kyoto pays for the price of the pass. If you plan on leaving the Tokyo area at all, it makes total sense to purchase this pass. The line at the train station under the airport was incredibly long, but I eventually got my pass and figured out what platform I needed to go to for Tokyo.
The Narita Express. Cool looking train.
Looking down the station platform.
I took the Narita Express train from Narita Airport Terminal 1 to Tokyo. You see, the airport is still about 40 miles outside of the city, so you need to take a bus or train to get downtown. I splurged on my rail pass and got the green car tickets, which is basically first-class for the trains. It was a smooth and comfortable ride. Oddly enough, even as we pulled away from the station and I could see the houses and trees of Japan, it still didn't quite hit me that I was finally there.
In the green car of the N'EX.
So, when did it hit me? Well, right when I got off the train at Tokyo Station to connect to the subway. Why? Well, I just so happened to arrive in Tokyo right at rush hour. If you think about it, my plane arrived at 2:09 pm, so by the time I got to Tokyo city, it was about 5:30 pm. The station was insane. I've never been surrounded by a rush of people like that before. One thing that confused me was that I connected directly from the N'EX, which is a JR line, to the Tokyo Metro line, which is run by a different company. Yet, I didn't go through any ticket gates. So, when I went to exit, I couldn't get out because I never paid for it at Tokyo station. I explained it to the guard at the gates. No idea if he understood me or not, but either way, he just let me through. Phew.
I'm thankful for Google Maps. Before arriving, I looked up how to get to my hotel from the subway station. The only confusing part was figuring out which exit to take out of the station, but once I was above the surface, I started recognizing things. I was happy to see that there were a few convenience stores along the way (a Lawson and two Family Marts), which I knew I would have to stop at a lot for snacks and drinks. There was also a brand new Curry House CoCo Ichibanya about 75 yards away from the front of my hotel! The Google street view doesn't even show that. I've had CoCo's in Hawaii before and loved it, so I was extremely excited to see it so close.
The hotel I stayed at was called Hotel Asia Center of Japan (slightly Engrish?) and it is located in Akasaka. I must say that I was a big fan of my hotel choice and I'll talk more about why in a later post. The staff there spoke great English. In fact, the guy who checked me in had almost no accent. My room was small, as was expected, but when I dropped my things off, my adrenaline kicked in and I was ready to go out and see something.
My modest hotel room. Really can't complain. Had just the right amount of space and comfort for me.
The view from my hotel room. Loved it! Could see Tokyo Tower on the left and a few buildings not too far away in Roppongi.
Yui-chan was ready to go out and explore.
I made the decision to go to Shinjuku, specifically to the street where Bill Murray first wakes up in his taxi at the beginning of Lost in Translation. Getting to Shinjuku Station was no problem; figuring out how to get through Shinjuku Station was a nightmare! My gosh that place is humongous and impossible to decipher! I knew I wanted to come out of exit B10, but I could not find it for the life of me. I ended up coming out what I would call the main entrance/exit of the station and had to follow the streets to Yasukuni Dori, which is where those neon lights are at the beginning of LiT.
Buildings outside of Shinjuku Station.
On the way to Yasukuni Dori.
Once I got there, I was in heaven. I purposefully brought my headphones so that I could listen to Death in Vegas' "Girls" right on the street where Bill Murray was. It was a perfect moment. From there, I walked up and down Yasukuni Dori, looking at the lights and the shops. Did this for about an hour and started getting tired.
The buildings and neon lights of Yasukuni Dori.
What I listened to in Shinjuku. Bliss.
A side street off of Yasukuni Dori. Still lots of lights.
Brighter, louder, and crazier than Vegas.
Plastic food displays are everywhere in Tokyo.
Lots of stalls selling all sorts of stuff everywhere.
Another busy side street in Shinjuku. Yasukuni Dori is right up ahead near that red gate.
I wanted to head back to the hotel, so I went back to Shinjuku Station only to get lost again. My goodness, that place could sure use some more signage. That's not to say that there aren't already hundreds of signs in that place, but it's a big station. I accidentally found a bakery, so I got a piece of strawberry shortcake, which the Japanese love. It's basically strawberries with pound cake and a very light white frosting. So yummy!
The long underground hallway back to Shinjuku Station.
Love that anime is all over the place, like here on the subway station walls. Uta no Prince-sama is a video game/anime geared more towards women since it has a lot of male characters and there were lots of ladies taking pictures of them.
The strawberry shortcake I got from Takano in Shinjuku Station. *drooooool*
I eventually found my way to the train I needed to take and got back to my room. I needed to sleep good as I was planning on waking up early to check out the tuna auction at the fish market the next morning. Look forward to hearing about how much of a bummer that turned out to be.
See all 61 photos from Day 1 of my Japan 2013 trip here. See all 29 mobile uploads from Day 1 here.
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