Skip to main content

Japan: Arrival in Tokyo

I'm in Japan again! This time, we took advantage of an insane flight deal ($600 round-trip, direct flight) and decided to make Tokyo and Sapporo our destinations.

First things first: the journey to Tokyo. As soon as I boarded the 787, operated by ANA, I noticed a giant stuffed Yoda sitting in first class. I laughed it off and figured it was just someone's travel companion. Nope! The entire plane was decked out with Star Wars paraphernalia - seat covers, cups, napkins, take-off music, overhead lights, ... even the flight attendants were wearing themed aprons over their uniforms! It was pretty wild - I'm guessing they got such great feedback from their passengers when they did it for Star Wars 7, they just kept it going.

Food was decent - ANA had this amazing dashi broth that you could order as a drink, instead of juice or tea or coffee. Otherwise, nothing extraordinary.

Landing in Tokyo, we arrived early at Haneda airport, and I was impressed that the customs process was much more organized and efficient than at Narita. Once we were off the plane, there was a sizeable queue for customs, but we got through in around half an hour (half the time it took in Narita). From there, we followed the awesome signage to the monorail, and took the train to Tokyo station. Rush hour was pretty busy, but luckily no sandwiching!

We made a beeline for the JR pass office, and were lucky to get a very helpful officer who not only got us our passes, but booked reservations for our whole trip, and patiently answered all our transportation-related questions. Yay for Japanese hospitality!

At this point, we were pretty exhausted, so we headed to our hotel in Ikebukuro and went to grab a quick bite at MOS burger before hitting the sack. Tomorrow will be a grand adventure - riding the shinkansen to Sapporo!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Happy Chinese New Year

I spent this past weekend in Toronto, sinfully stuffing my face full of Malaysian food in celebration of the new year. The image above shows a 2006 Australian Year of the Dog coin, commemorating the event quite fittingly - since the gift of money has its own part in the New Year's traditions. Now, although I may have eaten more than my share of glorious food, I also helped in the preparations of the feast! It was weird, baking with an electric mixer after having no such technology in Waterloo - I actually took a minute to stare in amazement while it was mixing the batter. Sad, I know. On Saturday night, I went to a friend's house for New Year's Eve and then later, to First Markham Place. Apparently, there was a countdown to midnight - which I'd never heard of before... and then realized why no one did it. As we counted down (in Chinese) - "sup... gou... bat... chut... lok... mmmm..." - and hit 5, a bunch of us burst out laughing. I can't really descr...
Post a Comment
Read more

Machu Picchu to Cusco

We survived. Our day started slow with breakfast and then killing time until our train departed at 1:30pm. That's what we thought would happen.  In reality, a landslide along our train route stopped all trains. Luckily, this happened before we were scheduled to depart, so we definitely dodged disaster. We ended up waiting only 2 hours to board a train out of Aguas Calientes, but this delay was only the first of many, which was not unexpected, since no one was prepared for the landslide.  Instead of our train taking an hour to reach Ollantaytambo, it took almost 2 hours, most likely because they were only able to clear one track along the route. Then, since we had to transfer to a bus in Ollantaytambo, and there was a backlog of passengers needing transportation, we got stuck in line/traffic. It took us almost an hour to get out of Ollantaytambo, with the streets completely jammed. We finally arrived in Cusco around 8:30pm, three hours later than the originally scheduled time. ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Reflections on Peru

Before I get too in the weeds, I think it's worth noting that after at least a decade of traveling to developed countries, Peru was bound to be a very different trip. It was our first time traveling to South America. It was the first time I was traveling with my in-laws. Also first time traveling to high altitude locations. Lots of firsts! The first thing we noticed was the transportation - we travelled on a South American airline (LATAM) for the first time, and found it to be a good experience. They automatically checked us into the flight 48 hours prior - I can only assume this is because they don't overbook their flights. On international flights, they provided blankets, pillows, and a light meal to all passengers (which is no longer part of the base fare for North American airlines). Of course, we did have that unfortunate experience on the flight back (also with LATAM) where one of us got food poisoning - so they don't get a perfect score. The great experience also doe...
Post a Comment
Read more