Shinjuku Lights

Asia » Japan
April 5th 2016

Published: June 8th 2017

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tinyisgreat

Ready to Fly at SFO

Geo: 35.67, 139.77

We arrived safely in Tokyo!

Eric and Beth got to our house about 630am. All four of us carpooled to the airport together. We made very good time considering it was Monday morning commute time. We ate incredibly expensive breakfast burritos in our terminal, and even had time to read before boarding for our flight.

The flight to Japan was fairly uneventful. We were crammed into tiny seats with no leg room. I was really irritated because I expected to have a personal monitor or to at least be able to rent an iPad with movies for the long flight like we have on other airlines in the past. No such luck and boy was I disappointed. All United offered were the movies on the tiny monitors in the aisles. Half were movies I'd already seen, the other half didn't interest me. I ended up reading and attempting several failed naps. The few times I did nod off, I'd jolt awake again really quickly.

Once we arrived to Narita airport, we had to wait in an incredibly long security checkpoint. I think several flights arrived at once. Everything after that has been easy and convenient. We exchanged our dollars for yen (we've

Over an Hour in Security Line

survived currency conversions by dropping two decimal points to figure out roughly what we're spending in dollars). We hunted down the pick up point for our pocket WiFi (a freaking godsend- by far the most incrediblly useful pre-trip purchase). Then we bought tickets to Tokyo Station via the Narita Express. Fifty minutes later we were finally in Tokyo.

Next we had to conquer the Tokyo Metro system.

http://kotaku.com/5991254/japanese-subway-stations-totally-look-like-role-playing-game-dungeons

People compare Tokyo subway stations to video game dungeons. Its hilarious. Shinjuku was our second crack at the system and its the largest. So if we successfully navigate THAT beast, and we did , every other station would be cake.

We finally met up with our Airbnb host close to 7pm. He gave us a tour of our home for the next few days. It's so tall and thin and cute!

Then we left for the Robot Restaurant in Shinjuku. We'd bought tickets ahead of time. We were well past 24hrs of no sleep at that point. But we made it. The show was nuts lol. It's like someone was on LSD aand made it into a loud light show with drums. It fabulously sums up the crazy, vibrant side of Japanese culture. Also it kept