Tokyo arrival
We didn’t get that much sleep, because of time differences, but at least we fooled our bodies into thinking we’d had some sort of night — which we had, as we passed over Finland and Northern Russia.
When we awoke, there was only two hours of the flight to go.
The approach was turbulent, with many shrieks from Japanese women, but we landed safely as you might expect.
There wasn’t as much bustle as we had expected at Narita airport. Nor was there any hassle. Some guidebook or other had led us to expect officious or nitpicking immigration officers: nothing of the sort. We collected our bags, breezed through customs, and found a helpful rail ticket sales desk person, who had us on the right train to Tokyo in no time.
It didn’t take long on the train to realise that most of the Japanese stereotypes we’re used to really do exist. The primly dressed Office Lady, the mop-topped besuited Beatle clone, the besuited businessman, the urban trendy in a wooly hat. We saw them all in a short space of time.
Traversing our one change wasn’t too difficult either, although we did mistakenly get off a couple of stops early, when the train started stopping at stations too insignificant to show up on our map. It wasn’t long before we were at our final train destination - Akihabara station - peering at a map.
It was here that a young Japanese man asked me (because I was tall) to reach up and take a photograph of a barcode on an advertising hoarding for him. I think it was to do with some sort of game where you could collect the barcodes. Whatever it was, it was odd.
Akihabara is overwhelming, but we blinkered ourselves from it, and concentrated on navigating to our hotel. This was far easier than anticipated, and we were soon trading pidgin Japanese with pidgin English, in order to discover that our room wasn’t ready (we expected this — it was early) and that we could leave our bags with them. We went out to find food while our room was prepared.
Now we allowed Akihabara to overwhelm us. Almost every single building is selling electronic goods of some form or another — computers, mobile phones, games, white goods, vintage oscilloscopes etc. They try various means to get your attention, with neon signs, and pretty girls in bizarre costumes handing out flyers. However, we were hungry.
After a few false starts, we stepped into a back street ramen restaurant, where we were served enormous bowls of ramen soup. Debbie’s was sesame flavoured, mine was miso. It was lovely and filling and cheap. Let nobody tell you it’s expensive to eat in Tokyo.
When we returned to the hotel, they were ready for us. The room is tiny, but that’s not unexpected. The compactness of the bathroom is a remarkable feat. Everything fits together so neatly.
I flaked. Debbie forbade me from sleeping (it was around four in the afteroon). I napped anyway.
Later, we struck out for an evening meal - not that we were that hungry, but we had to eat to fool our body clocks. We took the train to Tokyo Station, which has a multi-floor maze of shops and restaurants. We spent an hour or so wandering around, looking at plastic models of meals, then finally decided on “curry rice”. We both had beef curry, and it was
nice. And cheap.
With that, we headed back to the hotel. I wrote this. I know it’s not the greatest literature — but it’s all I can do to keep my eyes open, so think yourselves lucky.