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Craig and I woke up at 4 in the morning and his mom drove us to the airport. Our first layover was in Minneapolis,
and then we flew to Portland as our gateway point to Japan. Fortunately I've become the master at sleeping on planes, so
I slept through both domestic flights. By the time we boarded the plane to Japan, I was wide-awake and ready to enjoy our
water bottle filled with rum and in-flight movies for nine hours.
The international plane (an Airbus A330) was huge compared to the ones that fly domestically! When we walked in I was
so glad we were going to have so much space for the long flight. Also, every single seat had a screen in front where we
could play movies and control them like DVDs. The first movie Craig and I watched was In Good Company, which was a lot
worse than I expected. It wasn't funny at all and the plot was cheesy and predictable. But we did get to choose beer or
wine with our little tv-dinner that they served so we both got a small bottle of red wine. Then I watched an independent
flick called Swimming Upstream which turned out to be really interesting and well-acted, while Craig checked out the games
that were available on the screen. After the movie I found Craig playing electronic trivia against some first-class
passenger with the handle "A" and we spent hours teaming up against him. At one point the other guy beat us in a game, so
Craig wrote "Well played, A" on a napkin and had the steward bring it up to him. The steward came back and said that "A"
got a chuckle out of that. In the meantime, I'd been downing rum and cokes since dinner, so I was well-wasted by the
time we were done with trivia and decided to watch Hotel Rwanda. About halfway through the movie, I started feeling
pretty sick because of all the alcohol I'd ingested. I drank about a gallon of water by myself but didn't feel any better.
When I was feeling the worst, we actually started our decent into the Narita airport. The combination of feeling queasy
from the rum and from the altitude change prompted me to frantically started looking for the barf bag. I was so glad that
I was able to keep everything in by the time we landed.
What stood out to me the most when we got off the plane was the eerie silence throughout the entire airport. With so
many people walking around, getting their bags from baggage claim, and going through customs, the noise level was equivalent
to a library. I did think all the female airport attendants were very cute with their hats. The girls wore bright-colored
outfits with matching hats while they reviewed our passports and exchanged our money. Craig and I bought our JR Express
tickets and headed towards Tokyo.
It was an hour long trip on the train and I stared out the window the entire time. I saw miles and miles of rice fields
and caught glimpses of schoolgirls. I was exhausted since we'd been traveling for about 19 hours, but I couldn't wait to
arrive at Tokyo. A lady pushing a cart walked by us in the aisle but unfortunately I couldn't see what was in the cart. I
assumed they were bento boxes and snacks but I didn't wanna bust out my Japanese just quite yet. It'd been years since I'd
taken Japanese classes and I wasn't confident enough to attempt to speak to anyone.
We finally arrived at Tokyo and when we got off the train, we were tossed into a whirlwind of shoulder-bumping bodies,
bright lights, and Japanese-labeled signs. I could read the names of the different train lines but according to the map
from our hotel website, the line we needed didn't exist. We stood in the center of the station with hundreds of Japanese
people practically running us over and fumbled with the four maps we had. We navigated ourselves to an
area of the station
where we weren't as much in the way. I asked the fare adjustment attendant if he spoke English, and he gave me
this really disgusted look and violently shook his head. Craig's mom had told us that Japanese people seem unwilling to
help tourists, and here was our first taste of that trait. Finally after comparing two maps, we figured out that the main
JR (Japan Rail) line was also named the Yamanote line. We hopped on that train and decided to just get off at the station
that was closest to the harbor since our hotel was right on the bay. Luckily we made the right decision and could see the
hotel from the station.
After a ten minute walk we arrived in the hotel. Craig had gotten a really great deal at this incredibly expensive hotel,
and these are the types of cars that were valet-parked
outside. After checking in, the bellboy carried our luggage
up to our room for us. As he was walking out, Craig handed him 200 yen ($2). The bellboy awkwardly looked at the money in
his hands and hesitantly thanked us. I knew something was up. Later I read in my tourist handbook that you don't tip in
Japan. “They will be confused or even embarrassed.” Well, this bellboy sure was both, and after that lesson we never tipped
again. It's pretty awesome though, the no-tipping rule, because you don't tip in restaurants, hotels, taxis…nothing. You
don't realize how much money you can actually save by not tipping.
Since it was about 7pm Japan time, we decided the night was still young and wanted to check out the youth district of
Harajuku. As we walked to the train station Craig took a few pictures
of some rare Japanese cars (I think?). We
hopped on the train and got there right when it seemed like things were slowing down. Apparently this was the area to see
all kinds of weird costumes and hairstyles, but we only saw a few interesting people and most of the shops were closed. I
really wished we had gotten there even just an hour earlier because I would've loved to have checked out some of the stores.
We did get to go into one of those insanely cute UFO catcher and sticker picture stores.
I went for the key chains
while Craig went for the mannequin torso.
Then it was time to get some grub, so I read out loud what kind of food
was written on the store signs and we agreed on an udon shop. Good thing they had a menu with pictures because all Craig and
I had to do was point. This place had the best udon I've ever had in my life! My udon had beef
while Craig chose wisely and got the curry udon. We also got pieces
of unknown tempura, one which had
eyeballs.
After filling ourselves with delicious noodles and miscellaneous fried items, we were ready to head back. We'd been awake
for almost 30 hours and even though I didn't want to sleep and miss checking out more of the city, I could barely keep my eyes
while walking back to the train station. I think I got about 10 hours of sleep but I could've slept even longer.
Go to Day 2 >>>
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