Whoa. Long flight is long. And for some reason even longer when there are strange people near you who insist on doing annoying things – like the guy who kept turning his light on to check the time on his watch about every half hour? And the woman who was wearing a face mask, but who kept lifting it up to pick her nose? And the young guy across the aisle beside us who insisted on working or doing his taxes or filling out a college application or something for about two hours after everyone else on the plane had decided it was lights out… seriously? What’s with that?
I love to travel, but bloody hell I hate the long haul flights. This one was particularly bad – the air con was ridiculously drying and seemed to by spraying a superfine dust over everything drying out your eyes, nose, sinuses, and leaving a film of crap on surfaces… bit of a worry that. Maybe it was because it’s an older plane (you can always tell – the entertainment system was operated by a remote in the arm rest and options were pretty limited compared to the touch screen ones) with less than ‘fresh’ and springy padding in the seats. None of us slept… so at least it wasn’t just me for a change. Need to change it up on the drug combo for the flight home. 😛
Anyway, we arrived at Narita, a lot of which appears to be under construction… even though we were all feeling pretty trashed, Mr Public Transport Expert came to the rescue and found us shuttle tickets and not long before we were on our way. Unfortunately the weather is really shit here today and expected to stay that way until the weekend (hopefully it improves, the guys are planning on climbing Fuji, but there is no real point if the weather is shit and there’s nothing to see but cloud), so we didn’t see a lot of the country side on the way into Tokyo Station. The airport shuttle took about an hour and a half – traffic is as crap as Brisbane but seems more polite – and then we switched to a JR line train to get to our accommodation which is in Shimbashi, in the Ginza District. We ginned about a bit getting our key to the apartment we are staying in and finally got here around 10am? about 18 hrs after leaving home. So stupid flying out Sydney couple of hours the wrong way, then nearly a three hour lay over in Sydney, before heading north. Thankfully we’ll be going direct on the way home as new routes start on Aug 1, Brisbane to Narita. Woot, that will seriously cut down the transit time.
We settled in here a bit, laughed at the toilet, went ‘Hmmm, futons, didn’t think of that’ and all laid down for a nap. Two hours later and we thought we had better make something of the day. Quick freshen up and out the door to the Shinjuku area for a look around and to find an early dinner. Trains and I don’t mix. We especially don’t mix when I’m overtired and in a lot of pain… but it’s the only sensible choice and Mr K, being well versed in all things public transport, managed to get us there without too much incident.
Lovely area of town, lots of little back full of restaurants and shops screaming duty free at tourists. It is a weird blend of what we expect old Japanese back alleys to look like, mixed with ‘da-da-da-da-da Hollywood, big fuck off room, neon signs’, Yeah! We went into a noodle bar and ordered noodle surprise meals – literally, none of us had any idea what we were ordering, and then were handed enormous bowls of who knows what that we went ‘okay, that could be what I asked for’… delicious! Huge serves of veggies and noodly goodness. Score.
We wandered around a bit, took in some sight, Mr K and Angel are fascinated with all the vending machines – they are everywhere and full of all sort of mysterious things. We went into some gaming fun zone type places, some anime stores, department stores and later stumbled into a Bavarian Beer Hall – yeah I know. Weirdest beer hall ever – about three stories underground, gothic arches in the architecture, but art deco mock stained glass windows and really dodgy attempts at 15thC Flemish peasants painted as wall frescos, and Japanese food?! Go figure.
After that it was back to the Hamamatsucho train station and the grocers for some wine, snacks and ready for an early night. Lots of weirdness in the grocery store – love it and wine! Yay. (oh, and more Japanese curry than you can poke a stick at yaleman).
Check out the view from our balcony! 🙂
First impressions of Japan so far:
Everyone is so nice and polite. A random lady offered to help us with the menu when she heard us speaking in English, and yet we all still ended up with dinner surprise. 🙂
Everything seems really clean and tidy – even the train stations and surrounds. I wonder if that is just because I am comparing it to the be-bubblegummed and homeless beggars of the New York subway!
All the old buildings around the place don’t seem derelict – everything looks well looked after, there is very little graffiti and even the obviously older buildings are well kept.
It’s an interesting clash of old culture and new and I am sure that is only going to become even more apparent as we move around the country over the next four weeks.
Oh and my last, first impression (gotta love a good oxymoron) – the men here must be supremely confident… they all have the most fabulous man bags and sport them proudly. 🙂
