Tokyo - Here we come!

We were almost there. \(^o^)/ Almost.

Not only was Tokyo still about 70 km away from us, but there was also one hell of a line in front of the immigration counters for foreign visitors. Hesitantly, we got in line and - seeing that this could take hours - wished for our heavy hand luggage to just disappear. Or get to Tokyo on its own. Somehow. But - of course - that didn't happen and we soon had to admit that we were really tired after all. It was really hot and having read so much about how Japanese people love their air conditions I wondered where they kept those when you really needed them. （￣～￣;）

This whole immigration process soon gave us the feeling of an amusement park. Not only because of the small signs that told you that you still had to wait 45 minutes, but also because the excitement and enthusiasm you had when you first got in line was gone really quickly and you began to wonder whether this ride was really worth it. In our boredom, my friend Chrissi and I began to watch the people around us. As wikipedia says, 

"People watching is often an activity that people do to gain a first impression or simply for fun to pass time."

Definitely the latter. 

Anyways, slowly - very slowly - but surely, we got closer to the immigration counters. There were about eight or ten of them, though only three or four were open at first. The airport staff opened another two or three counters later on which helped a little to speed up the immigration process. When it was finally my turn, I went to the counter and handed in my disembarkation/embarkation card as well as my passport. After that, I was fingerprinted as well as photographed (though I'm still not sure whether I should be glad or not that I didn't get to see the photo - I must have looked horrible). 

And that was it. Didn't even take two minutes.

Now that we were allowed to stay in Japan for up to 90 days, we quickly went to fetch our suitcases, put them on luggage trolleys, went through customs and then, we were out. After almost two hours since landing, we were able to leave. Finally! ＼（＾▽＾）／ Our previous excitement was there again and we were one step closer to reaching Tokyo!

But not so fast. First, I - even though I had already changed my euros into yen back then in Germany some weeks ago - went to the currency exchange counter to change the remaining euros I had with me into yen, because some weeks ago, the exchange rate hadn't been that good and I had thought that maybe I'd get a better rate at the airport. And I was right. 

After that, Chrissi had to get some cash from an ATM, but even though we found the English language option, we had lots of problems getting the money. The actual problem was that you could only withdraw 500 euros per day, but we didn't know that and wanted to withdraw 800 euros in yen. And each time we waited for the cash to come out of the machine, all that happened was that a sentence appeared on the display. In Japanese, though. With many Kanji which we didn't know. We then asked a woman from the airport for help, but she wasn't able to help us either, thus Chrissi went off on her own in quest of money. 

ｶﾞ━━Σ(ﾟДﾟ|||)━━ﾝ!!

I was left with our luggage and sat down on a seat next to the small convenience store and waited for Chrissi to come back. But after half an hour, she still wasn't back and I hadn't seen where exactly she went, and with the trolley and our luggage it was hard to look for her as I didn't know where the elevators were located and what if she came back and I wasn't there anymore (where she'd left me)?! O___O Sighing, all I could do was wait. After a while, I started to pace back and forth with the trolley and looked around for the counter that sold Tokyo metro tickets, because you only get those in the airport and we wanted to buy some.

Eventually, Chrissi came back. With cash. Thankfully! 

After that, I quickly changed clothes in the closest restroom (and this one had those stylish modern toilets with loads of buttons) because it was simply too hot for long jeans. Then, we bought our first onigiri in the convenience store and then went to the Tourist Information counter, where we each bought 6 Tokyo Metro 2-day tickets. Even though many people on the internet always discouraged tourists from buying these 2-day tickets and instead recommended buying a Pasmo or Suica prepaid card, the two of us chose the 2-day tickets, because before our journey began we had calculated exactly how often we'd use the Tokyo metro each day and well, according to our plan we'd save some money using these 2-day tickets instead of a prepaid card. 

Originally, we had planned to buy the Grutt-Pass (a pass that gives you free entrance to hundreds of facilities in the Tokyo area) in the airport, but we didn't find the counter and wanted to finally get to our hotel, and thus we went downstairs to the counter of the Keisei Main Line to buy tickets for a train ride to Ueno Station. We chose the cheapest ticket (Limited Express) and shortly afterwards, we were already inside the train, waiting for it to depart.  

Inside the Keisei Main Line Limited Express Train

During the 80-minute ride, we tried to stay awake and distracted us by watching out of the windows where we saw fields and very Japanese looking houses. 

And at some point, we saw the Tokyo Sky Tree appearing and disappearing between skyscrapers, telling us that we were close to our destination. 

It didn't take long then until we got to Ueno Station. Once again, we wished our luggage would just transport itself to the hotel on its own. We clearly had too many clothes and other very useful things with us. And it was so hot!! Of course, we'd known that it would be hot and humid before we started our journey, but still... knowing is different from experiencing it in real life.

In Ueno Station, we followed the signs that would lead us to the Tokyo Metro Hibiya Line in order to get to Kodenmachou, the metro station closest to our hotel. First, we had to buy metro tickets at the ticket machine, though, because we wouldn't use the 2-day tickets until tomorrow. A map above the machines showed us the fare from Ueno station to all other metro stations, and since Kodenmachou was only 2 stops away, we had to pay only 160 Yen each. These ticket machines were really easy to operate and they had the English language option, too. 

A little later, we sat in the metro on our way to Kodenmachou, which only took four or five minutes. The only obstacle now between ourselves and the hotel was the staircase that led upstairs to the street. We hadn't seen an elevator, thus we had to carry our suitcases, rucksacks and handbags up the staircase and when we reached the street, we were soaked since it was so hot and humid. 

Oh, how often did I walk along this street in Google Earth's street view before our journey began. And now I was finally standing there myself. For real. And everything looked just like it did on street view, thus I knew exactly which way we had to go in order to reach our hotel. 

And then, five exhausting minutes of carrying our luggage later, we were standing in front of our hotel, "Horidome Villa". 

I was so excited! We did it, on August 22nd we were finally there after hours, days of travelling, weeks and months of planning and booking. 

It was so hot and humid and we were sweaty and tired and hungry and I even felt a little bit sick because of the lack of sleep, but still, at the same time I felt really great. The next days would be so much fun!

So that's it for now! I hope you're looking forward to the following days! Ｏ(≧∇≦)Ｏ

~Mina

Conquering The Air (Part 3)

As scheduled, our plane moved to the runway at 1:30pm and took off shortly afterwards. As always, the feeling when the plane starts to speed up and you are pressed into the seat, leaving your stomach some meters behind you, was a mixture of excitement, joy and also a bit of nausea.

 Bye, bye, London!

See you in two weeks!

A few minutes later, we were in the air once again and it was strange to know that even if you slept, when you'd wake up you would still be up there, in the air, above the clouds. We looked out of the window until clouds made the buildings, streets and bridges of London disappear. Which was, like, ten minutes after the take-off. Oh, well. Time to check out the entertainment system. 

Each passenger had their own small monitor installed in the back of the seat in front of them and there was a variety of things to do, watch or listen to. There were several games that you could play alone or with other passengers, for example Battleship or Pacman. Then, there were also hundreds of songs and music albums by different interpreters as well as lots of TV series, news or films, like The Hunger Games, Harry Potter, Bambi, Tangled or Liar Game Reborn. There was something for everyone. Besides watching movies and listening to music, we were also able to follow the route of the plane, because a map showed our actual location as well as our destination, the time at our place of departure and destination, our altitude, speed and the temperature outside. There was a remote control, but the monitor could also be controlled by touching it. 

As always, it wasn't long until we were served drinks and snacks, which in our case were spicy Thai rice crackers. 

Then, we began watching a film in order to pass some time. And watching films up there was really relaxing, because at home, there were so many things I could do instead of watching a DVD, and that's the reason why I rarely watched one. But in a plane, with almost twelve hours to pass and nothing "useful" to do instead, I could concentrate on the film and enjoy the time. Of course, I also had a novel, my mp3-player and a bunch of other things in my hand-luggage as well as Japanese phrase book, but forget that. Watching movies was just so much more fun when you were sitting in a narrow seat, especially at the window with no chance to stand up without annoying at least two other persons, and thus almost couldn't move. When watching a movie, all you had to do was watch and listen, but you didn't need your hands or feet, which was great because we could just cover ourselves with the blanket that had been provided, lean back against the small pillow and relax. 


After we'd watched the first film, the two of us played Battleship against each other and waited for more food. :D Shortly afterwards, we had to choose between chicken curry and macaroni. I had chicken curry, which was really good - hadn't expected that. My friend had macaroni and they tasted good, too, except for the warm tomatoes. But overall the food exceeded our expectations, and all those bad reviews we'd read about it were proven wrong. At least according to our taste. By now, we were already past Helsinki and were able to see Finland's beautiful lake scenery.

When we'd finished our meal (that I believe was supposed to be our dinner), we'd been in the air for about four or five hours. Almost half-time. Thus, we decided to stand up for a while, walked a bit and explored the toilet. I think standing up and moving on such a long flight is important, no one wants to get a thrombosis after all. 

Back in our seats, we started watching the next film. I watched "Bambi", though I suddenly fell asleep shortly after Bambi's birth and woke up only at the end when he was already grown up. Soon after that, the lights were dimmed in the plane in order to make us sleepy and prepare us for Japan's time zone. By that time, six hours had passed already. Our plane had taken off at 1:30pm GMT, that meant 2:30pm CET and 9:30pm JST, I think. So now, it was already 3:30am in Japan and we'd arrive there at about 9am local time. It really was time for us to get some sleep. 

Which was easier said than done. Only now did I notice how noisy this plane actually was, as conversations ceased and everyone was trying to sleep. I was sitting at the window, and thought that leaning my head against the wall would be comfortable, but oh noes, it definitely was just the opposite. With my ear pressed against the window, it was even noisier than before. And pulling down the window shades didn't help either. Different methods had to be tried!
Usually, watching a film helped me to fall asleep, but the provided headphones weren't comfortable to wear while sleeping. So that wasn't a possibility. I dug out my mp3-player from my laptop bag under my seat and tried listening to music to drown the noise, and I drifted off to sleep only to be awoken again by my mp3-player almost falling out of my hand. I was really tired, so I thought I'd try to sleep without trying any other methods, but falling asleep once again was difficult. Not only because of the noise, but I also had so little room and my friend had decided to rest her head on my shoulder which was not comfortable for me at all. ;) Ah well. Even if I wouldn't be able to fall asleep again, I thought closing my eyes for a while and relaxing would be good, too, and in between thinking about random stuff, glancing at the screen in front of me to check our location and peeking out of the window from time to time, I did in fact sleep for a short while, which was better than nothing, really. 
I still was very tired, but I hoped that my excitement would blow all the fatigue away once we'd be approaching Japan. 

I was really happy when more and more people opened their window shades and sunlight flooded the cabin. We were finally able to talk again without bothering anyone, though my throat hurt even without talking for hours. When most people were awake, breakfast was served. English breakfast, which consisted of one sausage, a single warm tomatoe, some mushrooms, scrambled eggs and bacon, as well as apple slices and juice. 

もう少し... A bit longer...

Looking at the monitor, we noticed that we'd almost reached the Sea of Japan. Our destination was within our grasp. Outside, the blanket of clouds cleared and we were able to see waves. Closer and closer we got and soon, the first Japanese cities appeared on the monitor. Sapporo. Aomori. 

Now we were really, really, really excited. I felt as if I'd already been on the way for a whole week, tired, but very happy. 

Upon reaching the Sea of Japan, the clouds vanished

First, we were able to see an island - Sado Island. 

Sado Island - though not really visible in this photo's size

Then, when we could finally make out the coast and soon flew over Niigata, eager to take photos of everything we saw, disembarkation/embarkation cards were handed out by the stewardesses. We still had more than half an hour until landing, so we ignored those cards for the moment, instead looking out of the window, where we saw mountains, towns, and far away, in the distance, Mt. Fuji. At least we thought it was Mt. Fuji. Or hoped so. :) 

There, far in the distance, was that Mt. Fuji?!

Niigata - in the bottom right corner you can see a part of Niigata Airport

Seeing that we were already close to Narita Airport, we finally filled out the cards, though sometimes we had to ask the girl sitting next to us, who'd been to Japan already two or three times before, for help, even though we'd looked those cards up on the internet before our trip had started. But looking something up in order to see what it looks like and having to fill it out without mistakes are very, very different. But anyways. Filling out those cards wasn't that difficult, we just didn't want to make any mistakes in order to prevent trouble. 

Closer and closer we got to Tokyo, as could be seen on the monitor. Shortly before landing,  announcements were made to switch off all electronic devices, though I wanted to film the landing and thus, hid my camera every time a stewardess passed our row. 

The weather was beautiful. Some clouds, but a really bright blue sky. Lower and lower our plane  sank and we were able to see Japanese trees, rice fields, grass, streets and houses clearly now. 

And suddenly, we'd already landed, safely of course. It took some minutes until our plane reached its gate. 

Since we were in the back of the plane, we had to wait until everyone from the front was outside, which also took a while. But then it was our turn. We walked to the front, noticing that especially the passengers who sat in first class had left behind lots of rubbish, said goodbye to some stewardesses and stewards and finally, for the first time in our life, we were on Japanese terrain. Well, a Japanese gate-floor at least. 

Immediately after leaving the plane, we noticed how hot it was, even in the building. Our first stop before going through the immigration process, though, was the toilet. We expected some of those modern Japanese toilets we'd already seen on TV, but meh. All we got were normal looking toilets, without control panels, seat warming or washing features. ;) 

So off we went, to the immigration counter! Little did we know that the entry procedure when travelling into a non-EU land would take such a long time. 

That's it for now! Finally, some photos taken in the plane. Just click on the photos for a larger picture.

It was morning in Japan, and the middle of the night where we started our journey

If you want to know how our journey went on and how we got to our hotel, stay tuned! :)

~Mina

Conquering The Air (Part 2)

After having been in the air for almost two hours, we landed at London Heathrow on schedule at 8:15am local time, excited what Europe's busiest airport was like. When the two of us were finally out of the plane, we followed the masses (and those purple signs that read "Flight Connections") to Terminal 5's passport and ticket control, passing toilets as well as the border control. After this control, we were reminded to put all liquids we had into a transparent plastic bag and throw away drinks and bottles, which we thought was stupid, because we'd already been controlled in Munich and the drinks we had were those we'd bought after security control in Munich after all, but oh well. No reason to start complaining, this was how it was after all and nothing could be done about that. And it was for safety after all, so yeah. We'd just have to buy new drinks after the security control once again.

So we were lead to an escalator that brought us to the security control, where we - again - had to line up and wait a while. Everything went smoothly, though, no alarm, no questions. 

And then we were there, between crowds of people and shops, carrying our heavy handluggage. We had five hours to pass, so we started with giving ourselves a tour of the Terminal. 

There were so many shops, especially expensive ones. It ranged from WHSmith, Boots, Harrods and The London 2012 Shop to Bulgari, Gucci and Prada. On our quest for food, we discovered quite a few restaurants, such as Eat., Wagamama, Giraffe, Starbucks or the Seafood Bar, but in the end, we bought one of those sandwiches at WHSmith. I paid with pound, since I had still some left from the last year when I was in London, but it was also possible to pay for example with an EC-card. 

Thanks to our heavy carry-on baggage, soon we were exhausted, so we sat down in one of those waiting areas and tried to figure out where to go in order to ask to which gate we'd have to go for our flight, since no gate was written on our ticket. Thus, we went to the information desk and were told that we'd simply have to wait until 12 o'clock, that means one and a half hours before our flight was scheduled, and look at the screens where the flights, gates, boarding and departure time were written on. 

We did as we were told and waited and waited. There was not much we wanted to do, so we just stayed in the waiting area, talking and watching people. 

Then it was finally 12 and the gate was added next to our flight on the screen. C52, that was where we had to go to. So we followed the signs that read "Gates C" or something like that and eventually, we had to take the elevator downstairs and go by an underground train to gates C. We were one of the first to enter the train, so we even got a seat for the short ride and the train was extremely crowded. To us, it seemed like some kind of practice for what could await us in Japan at rush hour. 

When we reached our gate, of course, we still had about half an hour until boarding began. 

We were really excited and nervous. Soon, we'd be in the air for almost twelve hours, longer than every flight we'd been on before, and when we'd land , we would almost be on the other side of the earth! How often did we dream about this moment before? And now it would soon be reality. 

While we were waiting, we studied the other people sitting around us. It was strange to know that we'd be on the plane together with them for half a day, and whatever would happen up there, we'd all be in the same boat, well, or rather plane. Should our plane crash-land on a remote island, these were the people we would have to team up with.
Though neither of us thought about what could possibly happen and all those catastrophes back then, since this journey was something we'd wanted to do for so long and nothing could stop us from trying to fulfill this dream of ours. 
Catastrophes and their possible outcomes, hah, we'd only think about them the moment the oxygen masks would fall down. And for everything that'd come after the crash-landing, I've written my seminar papers in school about "Lord of the Flies", so I know what's going to happen and how I'd survive. ;D Just kidding, really. 

Anyways, soon after, boarding began and we were among the first ten rows that were called. Quickly, we took out our passports and boarding passes, grabbed our handluggage and joined the line that had already formed by now. After our passes had been checked once again, we were lead down an escalator and had to go through a long passage until we finally reached the airplane.

There, we were welcomed by the stewardesses and stewards and they showed us which way we had to go in order to reach our seats. So we passed through the first class, the business class, the premium economy class and almost the entire economy class until we arrived at the seats we'd reserved months beforehand, after pondering on which side of the plane we'd have to sit in order to possibly see Mt. Fuji. 

While more and more passengers entered the aircraft and searched for their seats, we tried to make ourselves comfortable which was not as easy as it may sound, since we didn't have much space and on our seats, there were a small pillow, a blanket, headphones and a tootbrush, which were provided by the airline. Plus, I also had to stow my notebook bag away under the seat of the person in front of me as well as my legs, which - also - was not as easy as it may sound. We managed, though, and I swore to myself that - on the return flight - I would put everything I really really needed, like my MP3 Player or tissues or a drink, in a small bag and put the notebook bag together with my backpack into the hand-luggage compartment. 

As always, it took a while until everyone was seated and wore a seat belt, while the video about what to do in case of an emergency was already running, this time with Japanese subtitles. And  there was - as you'd expect in an airplane heading to Tokyo - a Japanese speaking stewardess on board as well and we were fascinated by listening to her, even though we'd heard people speak Japanese lots of times not only on TV but also in real life before. Nevertheless, this was different. We realized that this was the point where our journey really began.