Mon Aug 31 (Date of Arrival in Tokyo)
August 31 is my birthday and I was going to spend it in Tokyo. My trip started out very well. I checked in for my flight online the night before and was able to reserve a seat in the emergency exit row, with what turned out to be about four feet of legroom. With the flight time and the time zone difference, I departed Vancouver on August 30 in the early afternoon and was due to arrive in Tokyo on the following day in the late afternoon. When I got to the Air Canada check-in counters at the airport, I saw a massive lineup that looked like it would take more than an hour to get through, but, just beyond it, I saw the web check-in counter with about five people in line. I breezed right through in about 15 minutes with plenty of time to spare. Security was quick and I had time to grab some food before the flight boarded. On the plane, I had the window seat and the middle seat next to me was empty. The aisle seat was occupied by someone travelling on business. He didn't seem too interested in conversing and we didn't talk much. My sister was on a separate flight and would join me the next day in Nagoya.Air Canada might be criticized for poor service on its domestic flights, but it must compete with the likes of JAL and Korean Air overseas, and ratchets up their level of service on the long-haul flights. I was impressed. The meals were good and every seat had its own personal touchscreen LCD with movies on demand. The one unfortunate drawback of sitting in the emergency row is the engine noise, which made it very difficult to watch anything with audio unless I cranked the volume up really high. I didn’t think to bring noise-cancelling headphones (and it would have been too much bulk to carry around anyway), so I slept a bit and mostly sat there bored.
There was a huge monsoon on arrival at Tokyo Narita airport, and all inbound and outbound flights were being cancelled. I suppose we had been in the air too long when flights started to get cancelled for my flight to get cancelled too. The plane hit a few pockets of turbulence from the monsoon as we descended. At one point the plane dropped a good number of feet and I could feel it in my stomach. Some girls somewhere behind me let out a scream. The landing was rough: the plane bounced left and right on its wheels, but the ends of the wings didn't the ground. Thinking back, an onlooker would have probably let out a gasp watching the plane land.
Narita Airport has direct rail connections to Tokyo integrated into the airport, similar to the new Canada Line at YVR. When I went down to buy my train ticket, I met someone from Toronto whose flight had been cancelled and was heading back to Tokyo. We were on the same train and chatted during the ride. I remember starting to feel really tired and fatigued at this point. It was a very long day with the time zone difference. She recommended some good places to see in and near Tokyo. Unfortunately, I ran out of time and ended up seeing neither of them, but both sounded like pretty cool things to see and I’d like to see them the next time I travel to Japan: Nikko (about 2.5 hours north of Tokyo) and the Tsukiji fish market near Tsukijishijo Station.
I had to transfer to a local service train to get to my destination in Tokyo, slightly south of the Asakusa tourist area, and we said goodbye. After a few stops on the local service train, the digital sign inside changed to say “EXPRESS.” I stood up to check the map above the doors and must have looked pretty confused. This was a few stops before I was supposed to get off, and a Japanese girl approached me asking if I needed help. It turns out we had been on the same flight and she was returning from nine months of learning English in Vancouver. We chatted for a few minutes and it turned out that the train did stop where I wanted to go. When I got to my stop, she was smiling and waving goodbye to me as the train was pulling away. Very sweet girl.
It was dark when I emerged from the station onto the street, and pouring rain from the monsoon. Everyone but me had an umbrella. I was wearing pants, a short-sleeved polo shirt, and a huge 80L pack on my back. I didn’t really want to dig through it to pull out my jacket, so I began walking in the rain.
The directions to the hostel said to turn on the street after the 7-Eleven, but what we call back alleys are streets in Japan and so I walked right past my turnoff and got lost in the rain. Eventually, a car stopped and the driver asked where I was going. I mentioned the name of the hostel, K's House, and he knew where it was. It turns out that I was just around the corner from it. My first impression when I walked in was that it was very clean, the staff was friendly, and the place was extremely quiet. Nearly everyone was on a laptop. After I had checked in and dried up a bit, I went to the 7-Eleven to get a sandwich for dinner and then crashed at 10pm after a very long day.
