Day 7 & 8 Travel back to Tokyo and Flight to Hong Kong

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Hello dear readers.

It has been a couple of days since my last post. I've had limited down time in a hotel in recent days so haven't had a chance to update you on recent activities.

Most of the last 2 days (Sunday & Monday) has been taken up with traveling to destinations.

On Sunday I left my Hiroshima hotel around 0945 to head to the station to catch the Shinkansen back to Tokyo.

The trip had to be done in 2 parts as the Hikari Shinkansen does not operate a direct service from Hiroshima to Tokyo.
I had to jump off at Shin-Oska (i've learned that the word Shin is in reference to "new" or the new part of the city so Shin-Osaka refers to the newer part of Osaka) which is about 1 hour 30 from Hiroshima and change Shinkansen to complete the remainder of the journey to Tokyo (around 3 hours).
Having taken in the scenery on the initial trip East I decided to use this trip to catch up on a bit of movie watching. I had American Pie: Band Camp on the laptop so watched that on the Shin-Osaka / Tokyo leg. If you haven't seen it it's pretty good. Plenty of low brow humor synonymous with the American Pie series. My kind of comedy.

I had made arrangements to catch up with a former work colleague in Tokyo (Jacob) so was quite looking forward to being able to see a bit more of the city and being able to hold a conversation with another English speaker.

I made it back to the hotel around 3:30pm. I was returning to the "shoebox" from the 1st blog.

Jacob had arranged to meet in Shinjuku and emailed me the details of how to get there. Basically I caught the subway from a station near my hotel, had to jump off 6 stations in at Ichgaya, change to a train and continue to Shinjuku. While this seems straight forward it's still a little daunting as the Subway and trains run on different ticketing systems and you have to use your subway ticket to enter / exit the subway gate, then use your railpass to access the rail gates. Believe me it's easy to get confused on what to use when. I was advised to catch the 6pm subway from Shintomacho station nearby the hotel. I asked the hotel clerk where the station was. He had an "I'm embarrassed for you" look on his face we he proceeded to tell me I needed to go out the door. Taking the zebra crossing to the other side of the road and i'm there. If i'd bothered to open my eyes and look outside the hotel I would have seen the subway entrance right in front of me. Doh.
Anyway I made it to the subway. I intentionally left a little earlier as I hadn't ridden the subway before and wasn't totally familiar with where I was going and which line I needed to be on (the subways can operate several different lines from some stations) and to buy a ticket. There are automated machines to buy your ticket. While you can get English instructions it operates on the pretense that you know what your asking for. I wasn't sure what I needed so I brought an all day pass (I think I only needed a return ticket, but am not sure how to do that). Then I needed to navigate the gate system. The gates are automated. It reads your ticket and lets you through (and does the same at the other end to ensure you have paid the right fare). I looked like a dork standing at the gates with my ticket. I had no idea how it operated. I initally thought it had a scanner on it so held it on what I thought was a reader. Nothing happened. Thankfully a kind Japanese man took pity on me and showed me where to put the ticket. You put it in a slot, the gate opens and it spits your ticket out the other side. I know now for next time.
The next test was getting on the right line. Thankfully there was a gaurd at the subway. I asked him (about 3 times before he and I both understood) if the next train was going to Ichgaya. It was, success. Once on the trains it's reasonably easy to determine when to get off. I made it without hassle to Ichgaya, went upstairs and caught the train to Shinjuku. This stuff is easy or so I thought.
Jacob had advised me early that Shinjuku station is mad. It has approx 3 million commuters through it a day. 3 Million!!!! Thats unbelievable. Even early Sunday evening the place was a mad house. We'd arranged to meet at the East Entrance. After a bit of navigating I made it to the entrance. From there I waited... and waited, and waited. We were due to meet at 6:30 and it was now 7pm. I had my mobile with me but it's basically useless to do anything but call, the txt messaging doesn't work with roaming. I didn't have Jacobs number anyway. It was getting a bit desperate. Jacob had email on his phone (god bless the Japanese technology). I somehow managed to create an email account on my phone and sent (I hoped) an email to Jacobs phone. It only works 1 way. I couldn't receive anything. About 5 mins later Jacob appeared. We had missed each other in the madhouse of a station. He had got my email. Jacob introduced me to his friend Aki. Aki is Japanese but speaks very good English (mostly self developed rather than schooled).
We were all starving so Aki booked us in to an Okonomiyaki restaurant nearby. I was stoked. I was finally going to get some real Japanese food at a real restaurant, it was also the food I wanted to try in Hiroshima.
We made it to the restaurant (an upstairs cosy establishment). Shoes off. We were then led to the "table". Some of you will be familiar with this style where you cook your own food. You are seated at a gas hot-plate and the food is brought to you to cook yourself. Aki ordered about 6 choices for us to share. They ranged quite a bit. They ranged from pork, to shrimp (fresh and dried) to Squid to spiced fish eggs (I was a bit wary of this one as it didn't look that appealing. However it tasted really good). We enjoyed a fews beers each to wash them down. When the last one came out to be cooked, the Tokyo Okonomiyaki we were all pretty full. Aki had a coupon for the restaurant which greatly reduced the price. Overall for the meal and a couple of beers each it came it about 8500 Yen (about $150 NZ). I thought that was pretty reasonable.
After that we hit a couple of bars and put away a few more beers (including a Sapporo dark beer). We called it quits around 11:00 as the Subways only run until midnight and we all needed to catch one.
We said our good-byes at Shinjuku station and started the trek home. The mind had been a little blurred from the beer so took things a little casually ( I thought I had this train / subway thing sussed). I couldn't beleive the number of people waiting to catch the train at this time of night. There were heaps of people waiting.
I boarded the train bound for Ichgaya and got off at the stop. This is where things go pear-shaped. I was pretty comfortable with the subway line I needed to get home on and the number of stops to the station. I jumped on the next train on that line. It was a couple of stations in where I started to become a little concerned. None of the stations we stopped at seemed familiar. When I got to the 6th station it became clear what i'd done. I caught the right train line, but gone in the wrong direction. I was twice as far away from where I needed to be. I thought i'd simply jump on the next train back and get home a little late. The station boards were indicating that the next train was the last one for the night. I double checked with the gaurd to confirm the train stopped at Shintomicho. Guess what. Nope. Didn't even get close. Now I was really worried. It was midnight. I was in a strange place, had no idea where I was or how far away I was from my hotel and I was slightly drunk.
I left the subway and managed to hail a taxi. I knew I was quite far away when the taxidriver needed to setup his navman to direct him to the hotel. He also asked me if "highway ok?" If we needed to take the highway then I knew I was miles away. Sure enough I was in the taxi for about 30 mins and 6300 Yen later OUCH! I made it home.

The following morning I checked out at 10am. I was due to catch the airport express train at 1pm, until then I had not much planned. I left my bags at the hotel and wandered around Ginza again. It was a bit more interesting this time as I wasn't tired and stinky. It was a bit of de ja vu. I walked Ginza city on arrival and walked it again on departure.
I gave Dad a call to wish him happy birthday.
I went back to the hotel about 12, collected my bags and caught a cab to the train station. I then caught the 1pm Airport Express to Narita Airport. I got to the Airport around 2pm. My flight to Hong Kong wasn't until 6:25 so I had a lot of time to kill.
Thankfully I was able to check my bags in straight away so I didn't have to lug them everywhere. The system at the airport is impressive. Similar to many airports everything is touch screen (including scanning of your passport), then you dump your bag on the conveyor belt and wish it good bye. Too Easy.

I pottered around the airport, took in the shops and had lunch at one of the eateries. I had some Chinese food. I had a Noodle soup with Pork. It was fantastic. The pork peices on top were absolubtly delicious. The price was about 1100 Yen and well worth it.
I took in the observation deck. Not your usual plate glass viewing deck, rather it's outdoors. There are planes in all directions and controlling them must be a mission.

I went through to the departure lounge around 5:15. I forgot I had a can of spray-on deodorant and sunscreen in my carry on bag. That disappeared into the bin as they both exceeded the allowed 100ml/100gm limit. A bit of waste as the spray-on sunscreen cost around $25.
I waited at the gate for the boarding call. The flight was pretty much full. I was seated next to Will a 30 year American. Will was off to China for work. He works for Brookes sports shoes and was on his way to inspect some of the factories in China to ensure they were meeting their HR obligations as well as giving seminars on trade requirements. He had been in the air for around 24 hours so he was pretty shattered, but we spent about an hour or so discussing each others countries and world affairs before he fell asleep.
The plane itself was a bit of a worry it made all sorts of creaks and groans when we were taxi-ing to the runway. It was quite a site as we were taxi-ing. There were about 10 planes in a row in front of us waiting to take off.
Once in the air it was like any other flight. We touched down in Hong Kong at around 10:40 local time (it's 4 hours behind NZ). The next shuttle to the Hotel wasn't until around 11:45. I finally checked into the hotel at around 12:30am. I was looking forward to bed. I was due to get on a tour at 8:10am so sleep was defiantly the highest priority.
Keep a look out for more details of my adventures in Hong Kong.

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Photos

Preparing for the meal
The Okonomiyaki arrives in Bowls then get mixed then put on the hot plate