Arriving In Japan

Departed for Japan today. Booked a JAL flight from Boston to Chicago, then Chicago to Tokyo/Narita airport. The one from Logan to O'Hare was really a re-branded American Airlines flight so it was 2 1/2 hours of boring. At O'Hare I met up with Xander and Shella with whom I'm travelling, and we boarded the 11hr Japan Airlines flight to Narita Airport.



It was easier to pass the time with personal TVs like on JetBlue. They also had cameras that showed in front of and underneath the plane for takeoff and departure. They even had a large catalog of things to buy right on the plane including neckties, watches, and makeup.



At Narita, we had to show our passports and fill out a form for disembarking, and bring our bags through customs. Surprisingly, it took like 15 min to do all of that. We shipped our luggage to KIT with the shipping service at the airport. It's really cheap to ship our heavy bags across the country in like 2 days.



We took a JR train from the airport to Shinjuku station in Tokyo. On the way we passed many rice fields ajacent to the train, and many seemingly affluent towns. Arriving at Shinjuku station, I took this picture:







Shinjuku Station



From here we walked a few blocks to the hotel. Fortunately you don't really have to know Japanese to travel here, just walking around and looking lost invites people to come and help you, they were very nice. The streets were full of commuters in suits getting off work I assume. The sidewalks of the streets had parking spaces for scooters and bikes that were often pretty full. I took a few pictures on the street:







Streets of Shinjuku



Now we're at the Star Hotel Tokyo, in pretty tiny hotel rooms, good thing we're not fat or tall. It has internet, and that's really all that matters. I'm typing this sitting on a chair that's closer to the size of a footstool, and a desk that's about wide enough to fit my laptop and that's it. The bed is about the same height as the chair, and the peep hole on the door is a little more than 5 feet off the ground.



I'm going to sleep now so I can get up early to potentially check out the fish market tomorrow morning.