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Published: September 18th 2010
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Temples! Sushi! Sumo! It's about the only thing I have been able to focus on the past few months ever since I told my girlfriend, Katie, that we should take a trip to Tokyo. So many times these past few months, while stuck doing overtime at work or sacrificing going out on a weekend, I kept telling myself "It'll all be worth it when you're in Japan." After we decided to go for it, I began to voraciously read travel guides, blogs, web sites, and anything I could get my hands on that would give me information on Japan and things to see/do. And today........ today was the day we'd depart to The land of the rising sun.
*RING*.......*RING*...... *RING*........ as the alarm clock rang out, my first thought was "please, just 5 more min.", however, after a split second I realized today was the day I'd get to explore another part of the world. I raced out of bed and hopped in the shower to get ready. Bags...... check. Passports.... check. Cash..... check.
Mike dropped us off before work at my parents house so I could say by to my mom before. BTW, if you're reading this, thanks
Mike! I had some breakfast and then my mom dropped us off at the Flyaway. For those of you that haven't heard me talk about the trip ad nauseam the last few months, Katie and I were able to get buddy passes from my dad's friend who worked at United Airlines for 30 years or so. The tickets are quite affordable, but you're only standby. At last count, tickets were 3700+. We paid a little over 1/7 of that.
At the airport we had a little bit of a scare checking in when the machine said it didn't recognize our confirmation number. Katie and I looked at each other a bit frightened. However, after asking for help, it turns out we forgot to press "employee check in" in one of the menus.
We were later given First Class seats for our trip. Unfortunately, halter top dresses were against company policy to sit in first class, so we got seats in coach. Oh well, no biggie. I was just excited to get on the plane! In fact, there were many more empty seats than expected. Katie and I lucked out and had an empty seat next to us. The
flight went by remarkably quickly. We took advantage of the complimentary drinks, played cards, watched a crappy Jennifer Lopez movie, etc. Well, Katie didn't think it was crappy, but it was a chick flick, so whatever haha.
We arrived at Narita International Airport at about 3:50pm and went through customs. Although the signage is in English, it's still a little intimidating walking through airports and other places in a foreign country. You never know beforehand who speaks English and who doesn't. It took us about an hour to get through customs. We then went and traded our Japan Rail Exchange Orders for the actual pass. With a little research, I found out that the Narita Express into tokyo is covered by the JR Pass. SCORE! That'll save us like 30 bucks each. We transferred trains at the Tokyo Main Station, then Ueno, and arrived at the Asakusa station. I had memorized directions on the website, but walked out of the station and the markers they indicated were not there. We were looking for the "Blue Bridge"..... and no bridges were in sight. After a brief walk, my navigating sense told me the water would be East. Ah, we saw
the Red Bridge, and beyond it the Blue. We trekked with bags in hand, stopped for a quick photo op of the famed Asahi building then checked in. The hostel was very clean and quite reasonably priced. Luckily, I made hostel reservations several months in advance, because a couple was turned away at the front desk as we walked in.
After taking a much needed shower (man, we stunk!), we walked around Asakusa. We stopped by at the Karinarimon Gate and a few other places. Finding food that Katie would eat was a challenge since all the menus were in Japanese. In my exhaustion, I forgot my guide book so didn't know what places served what. They had pictures, but quite a few didn't look very enticing. We ended up settling on Yoshinoya because we wanted something quick and easy. I had a plate of thinly sliced beef, salad, rice, and miso soup. Katie couldn't find anything she wanted (after about 45 min of walking around), so she just had rice.
After about 2 1/2 hours of walking around, the jet lag REALLY set in. At one point when we were at a Lawson's convenient storing picking up
Me in front of the famed Asahi Building
Look at the stupid look on my face! Man, you can tell I'm tired. drinking supplies, we both felt that the store was rocking back and forth haha. I thought it was just me, but then Katie said it. We decided it was time to head back to the hostel and get some rest. Tomorrow....... well........ tomorrow is the day we conquer Tokyo!!!!!!! I'll try to blog tomorrow, so see you guys soon!!!!
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Amy
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Glad you two made it safe! From the few pics you posted I can already tell the city is cool as hell. Enjoy!