Getting to Japan

I’m sitting in my hotel room (actually, “hostel room”) in the Tokyo Hostel. I got back from doing some planned short-exploring and I’m very thankful there’s a HUGE AC unit in my room, due to the heat and humidity (it was in the upper 80’s when I landed and the humidity was above 70%).

My trip here was not boring. After getting to the airport and checked in, I went at sat at the loading gate for my first leg flight to San Francisco. While waiting for my flight, the guy I was sitting next to, Rob, and I started a conversation. Come to find out that while I was heading to Tokyo, he was headed back home to Shanghai (my understanding is his home is in Shanghai, though he was from the USA). We talked about IT, law, a smattering of another topic that escapes this jet-lagged brain. The boarding started and our conversation ended; I hope he made it to Shanghai alright (hey Rob!).

While on the flight to San Francisco, I sat next to Andreas (I have a picture that I’ll post later, as my eyes are dropping while I type this) who I come to find out lives in New Jersey and he grew up in Germany. I also come to find out that he’s getting studying to get his instrument rating for his pilot’s license. We ended up talking about aviation and other random topics that came to mind. Andreas was heading to San Francisco to attend a wedding for a good friend. I hope he made it to the wedding and back home (hey Andreas!).

The flight from San Francisco to Tokyo was not as eventful, but I did get three seats to myself. And on a Trans-Pacific flight, I’m glad that happened. Though the flight itself was uneventful, I realized an hour into the flight that I had forgotten to print out the details of this hostel, when I was given immigration forms and I didn’t have an address to put in the required fields! I eventually let it go and figured I’d brainstorm something up when the time came.

After watching “The Book of Eli” and “Tokyo Tower – Mom & Me, and Sometimes Dad”, reading from “Idoru”, the time went by. I wish it went by quickly, but almost 10 hours of daylight beyond a “normal day”, after not sleeping much the night before made it go a little slow. As we were nearing Tokyo, we flew over some oil storage/refinement facilities. That normally wouldn’t matter, but since I was only used to facilities from the USA, I experienced both a “familiar” click and a “what the eff?” when looking at them.

After landing and asking one of the officials, I found out that I didn’t need to have an address or phone number. That little bit of stress evaporated, I grabbed my bag, proceeded to immigration inspection (very boring that was) and then the next trick to find a train to take to Ueno. After talking with a customer, I got on the Skyliner (bullet train or “shinkansen”) from Narita Airport. I was amazed at how smooth the ride was- (close to no shimmy) and that the train going through certain stations, it never slowed down! ZOOM! Right on through!

After getting off the Skyliner, I hopped onto a Tokyo Metro train. I made it form Ueno to Minowa station. I exited and realized I had no idea where I was going. After 30 minutes I still didn’t know where I was going. After an hour I didn’t know where I was going. I was walking around in circles trying to find this hostel. Around the one hour 30 minute mark, I stopped back into the Metro entrance, looked at a map (I missed the map a couple of time before… did I mention I haven’t had much sleep?) and found the route to get here. I’m thankful the hostel was listed ON the Tokyo Metro map, otherwise I probably would have had to join the homeless sleeping under bridges, that I saw while on the train to Ueno.

It’s almost 10pm local time and I think I need to try to get some sleep. More tomorrow!