Dogberry Patch

After landing and going through customs it was about 5:00 pm. We went over to the train counter and each bought a ticket to go from the airport into Tokyo. Narita airport is 40 miles outside of Tokyo. (I am guessing Tokyo plans to expand and didn’t want an airport in the center of the city.) We had a choice of the Express Line at 1920 yen ($16.55) or the regular at 1000 yen($8.60). The express would take a little over an hour to get to the station we needed to get to. The regular line, since it will stop more frequently, would take an extra 20 or so minutes. Cheap guy that I am, 20 minutes was not worth an additional $8.00 for each of us.

The signs pointing to the subway were also in English so we followed them down to the subway without a problem. This station is the starting point for this subway line so the car was pretty empty. This was great since it allowed us to get on without having to struggle with our luggage onto what was going to be a pretty packed subway car.

The subway car started its journey and we watched the the reader board and the signs at subway stops to make sure we wouldn’t go past our destination but also to learn how the system works since we were planning on doing all our travelling by bus and subway.

We disembarked at the Ueno Station and had to figure out what to do. The directions to the hotel said to catch another subway and have a 10 minute walk to the hotel or, if you are adventurous, catch a bus and be dropped off in front of the hotel.

We looked and their were two exits for the Subway that I could see. We had no idea which one to take so we took the one on the right (which of course turned out to be wrong). From this exit is seemed fairly obvious that there was no bus stop so we walked around the subway station (actually Ueno Park is on top of the station) and asked a police officer where to catch the bus. My Japanese was as good as his English, in other words neither of us understood a word the other was saying. But he pointed us in a direction, and it seemed right, so we crossed the street and walked towards where he suggested.

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Geoff and I found our seats in row 26 quite easily. The Boeing 777 is set up with 5 seats in the center and 2 seats between the aisle and the window, so Geoff got the window seat and I had the aisle. Cruising at 30-some-odd thousand feet means that except for about 15 minutes after take-off and before landing, your only view is the tops of clouds. I much prefer the extra space of having the aisle and being able to get up and stretch easily.

We settled into our seats and it was not long before we were taxiing down the runway and up in the air.

I noticed on the in video GPS that to go from Seattle to Tokyo the plane flies all the way to Alaska! Guess it has something to do with the earth’s bulge so that a the shortest distance is not always a straight line.

It seemed that the ‘Fasten Seatbelt’ light was not off more than 10 minutes and the flight crew was bringing us lunch. Had a great beef dinner with spinach (Von make more spinach).

After dinner we had 4 or so movies to choose from. I watched one and then went on to finish listening to a book on tape that I had recorded onto my Tungsten T3 that I can use as an MP3 player.

You will notice that this post is labelled Day 1b/2a. That is because at 6pm Seattle time we crossed the international date line near the tip of the Aleutian Islands up in Alaska. Since there would be a 4 hour time difference, I am guessing at 2pm on the 27th it suddenly became 1 pm on the 28th! (Someone can correct me if I made a mistake here).

They came around with snacks 2 times during the flight and then before we landed they served us lunch. Again another great meal. My only regret was that I had a beer with lunch and I think it upset my stomach just enough when we started to land about an hour later.

The plane landed at 3:30 pm but we taxied half way across the country before the plane finally stopped. It must have been close to 4:00 pm before we got off the plane. But there were no lines when we arrived at customs so we just whisked through the lines there and the wait for the baggage was not bad either.

We then scoped out the terminal and decided we had better change our Dollars into Yen. We deciphered the forms needed to change the currency and now had a bunch of colorful money in our hands.

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Geoff and I left home at 5:30 in the morning to start our drive to Sea-Tac Airport. We made a quick stop at Albertson’s to fill our pop mugs and buy some zip-ties to ‘lock’ the luggage and we picked up some pop-tarts they were ‘pushing’ at the check-out. These made a fine breakfast.

We almost made it to Seattle without a stop but nature finally won and we took what looked like a promising exit. Yet after a mile we still had not come across a gas station or any other rest room. Just as I turned around to go look in the other direction, I spotted a porta-john in front of a home being built. A welcome blessing.

We were back on our way in short order and it was not long we were driving through the airport. Ooops. I had followed the signs right to the airport and not to the parking lot where we were going to leave the car.

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Tokyo can be quite expensive. Geoff and I are willing to forgo the fancy 4 star hotels and enjoy our stay. In this ‘economy class’ I have looked at rooms that run from as much as $100 down to $20 per night per person. We really wanted to have internet access so we can keep folks posted as to what we are doing both by email and on our blogs.

I came across the Juyoh Hotel near Asakusa in the Shitamachi area of Tokyo that looks quite nice. It calls itself a “typical Japanese hotel at a reasonable rate”. There were no double rooms available so we will each have our own room (same price as a double room) for 2,980 yen each per night which works out to about $26.00 each per night.

The rooms are described as “3-tatami room”. A tatami a traditional Japanese mat and measures about .9m x 1.8m. A 3-tatami room would hold 3 mats and therefore measures about 5 square meters (2.7m x 1.8m). Each room has a color TV (if you want to watch Japanese TV), an air conditioner, and a refrigerator for you to store your food. Each room also has a Yakata (Japanese night robe) and a bath towel.

You share a common bathrooms on each floor. The showers for the guys are on the 6th floor and there is a Japanese style communal (but not co-ed) bath on the 10th floor. I will have to check out this communal bath thing. From what I have read it is more like our hot tubs but without the swirling water and without the swim suit.

There are 5 computers with internet access available in the lobby for guest use. But the real selling point is that each floor of the hotel has an internet access point set up to provide Wi-Fi to each room for free.

A laundromat and vending machines are available on the 10th floor. The vending machines dispense soft drinks and beer!

The hotel is right next to a bus stop and about a 10 minute walk from the train station.

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