Out n' About: Day 1-2: Tokyo

Here we go!!

We left the UK at 7.15 on January 13th from Manchester to Frankfurt Germany! As flights go this one wasn’t bad, only an hour and a half with cabin crew that chain fed you as much coffee, tea or soft drinks they could for free. Only downside to this flight was the turbulence on the landing which made even the cabin crew uneasy. Despite this Gav slept through it until we were told to get off.

Next we were faced with baggage collection. After waiting half an hour for our bags, we realised they weren’t turning up. Little did we know that because we were on a connecting flight, our bags had been automatically transferred to our next plane. Good job we had another 3 hours to wait for the next flight.

Finally we boarded the plane for Tokyo! 11 hours of flying with next to no leg room followed. This combined with very little sleep made it not such a fantastic flight (Gav and I also decided not to go to sleep the previous night since we were getting up at 3am to travel to the airport. This seems very silly now!).The amount of Japanese people wearing surgical masks was daunting as well. This coupled with the amount of people who were falling sick throughout the flight made it worse and every time this happened to someone, a few more people pulled out their masks. Was there something we didn’t know that we should?! I guess the free beer (that was surprisingly good for German lager) and the free wine were a good consolation.

Upon arrival to Tokyo, the efficiency of the Japanese became apparent. In the time we had walked from the plane to luggage collection peoples bags were already circling on the carousels. Our bags must have gone on first as they were the last to come out! Once we had them we went through customs which despite having to have finger prints scanned and photo taken, took no time at all. The train station wasn’t a problem to find either. It is built below the ground floor of the airport and has two different lines running out of it with trains leaving from it regularly. The ticket ordering machine was operated by a member of staff and despite us having a set of directions that would take us directly to the hostel we ended up with a direct ticket to the main Tokyo station.

The train journey was around an hour long. As soon as we entered some of the urban areas on the outskirts of Tokyo we could immediately see how different the country was to anything we had seen prior. Japanese buildings have no symmetry whatsoever. They are completely random shapes and sizes.

As we rolled into the Tokyo main station we realised how far away from our hostel we really were and how the lady that helped us operate the train ticket machine at the airport may not have been as much help as we originally thought. We would have to get another three trains to get to our hostel. Fun! Figuring out the train network was a little tricky too but help was at hand. A little old guy saw us gawping at the map of the metro and came over to ask if we needed any help. With his help we got on the train and found out where we needed to get off. Just before it was time for us to get off the metro train the old guy came over to us again and the next thing we knew this old guy was explaining to us about his packet of traditional Japanese sweets that originated in the south of the country and before we knew it he was giving us a pair of the sweets each. Normally that would seem kind of dodgy but we took the sweets, thanked him and got off the train.

A ten minute walk later and we reached the hostel. We showered and had a sleep for a couple of hours as we were shattered from the flight and our little adventure from the city centre. After a couple of hours we got up and decided to take a trip back into the city to have a look around and get a bite to eat.

After stopping at a small noodle bar on the way out of Tokyo station we ventured into the city in search of some of the main shopping streets to have a good look around. All I can say is the place is crazy. I thought it was the Americans that built everything as big as they could but these little guys do as well! We both needed a watch so decided to have a quick look in the Swatch shop. The foyer of the shop was a series of glass enclosures/rooms. Most of them had the doors closed. I assumed this was for security and that if you wanted to see inside the rooms you had to ask a member of staff. However one of the room’s doors was open so we went inside and had a look. A few seconds later a head pops round the door and asks if we wanted to go down. Confused, we asked him what he meant and he explained the room was actually a lift. There was no indication of it being a lift until he pushed the face of one of the watches near the door and we were shot down into the basement. After a look up and down the street we decided we would catch the train back to the hostel and have an early night to recover from the flight.

If only things were that simple. We caught the train back without any problems but when we got off it we took the wrong exit from the station. Unfortunately once you’ve gone through the stations barriers, you can’t get back in. Once we got outside we realised how far away from the exit we should have taken we were. It was also dark now which complicated the matter as we couldn’t see anything that looked familiar. Everything looks different when it’s dark!! We headed off down one of the main roads, hoping it would lead us in the right direction but of course it didn’t. Next we were heading down small side roads, weaving in and out of them with the remote chance that we could cut through to the next main road. Eventually we managed to find the next road and navigate our way back to the hostel. We managed to turn a 10 minute walk into a 45 minute one!

Once back at the hostel we decided to take a power nap with the intentions of getting up a bit later and checking out the night life for a while. We weren’t by any means planning a big night, just to have a scout out and about to see what was available to us near the hostel. This didn’t happen and neither of us woke up till 8am this morning. Just shows how tired we really were! I think it’s only the fact that we were both so excited that managed to keep us going the time we did!