Rosie and The Operator have landed in Japan! A civilized flight time of 10.5 hours had us arriving at Tokyos Narita airport at 5.00pm, we are now headed towards our AirBnB in Shinjuku.
After a speedy bag retrieval and customs transition we were searching for the Narita Post Office. Foreigners cannot buy good data packaged SIM cards here in Japan so we had ordered online before leaving New Zealand a Pocket WIFI unit. Check out Rosie’s Japanese Musings for how awesome these actually are. Post Office located we showed the staff our prepaid receipt number, they handed us a brown paper bag and away we went. Rosie was crowing how easy that was, it really was that simple and quick…..don’t speak too soon Rosie.
Downstairs we went to buy a ticket to catch the Narita Express Train that would wizz us at super high speeds into Shinjinku Station. From there we were looking at picking up another three stop connection that would land us 100 metres from our prebooked AirBnB apartment. There was no que so we opted for a human ticket dispenser rather than the machine.
Feeling smug at the ease of progress Rosie went to check out the station vending machines while we waited for our train, she had never seen so many. The Operator ripped into his WIFI pack and had us online within five minutes. Too easy, Rosie loves Japan!
Until she cracked into her bottle of what she thought was lemon flavoured water. I mean come on, picture of waterfall with lemons bobbing in the pool at the bottom. It wasn’t, it was a sour, acrid tasting tea of some sort without even the smallest hint of lemon or sweetener….its only saving grace was that it was wet and cold. Things started going downhill from there…
We caught our train easily enough and sat down to relax in the clean, sterile comfort of our allocated seats, The Operator was committed to finishing the tea and was doing well on that front, Rosie was reveling in the internet after 10 hours of off the grid silence.
One hour 10 mins later, we arrive at Shinjuku. The busiest train station on the planet. 3.5 Million people per day transit through here. There are 200 exits to this station, crazy eh!
It cant be that hard to find our exit, Rosie and The Operator are on a roll, forget about that tea, we have an exit number to our next station that we need to look for courtesy of our accommodation and are hitting the ground running. Hold on, where is Rosies jacket? YOU ARE JOKING!!! she left it on the train. Serious! Things are taking a turn.
We wandered from top to bottom, from left to right, people were everywhere, Rosie thinks she passed the same shop in the shopping mall three times…Rosie was getting cranky, The Operator was staring intently at the signs and off we would go in another direction wheeling our cases along. Enough, we conceded defeat, we couldn’t find our connecting train line or the proper exit. In the end we busted out of the nearest doorway into the glowing neon night.
The air was beautifully cool and fresh, hundreds of people were bustling around us, Rosies eyes were as wide as saucers. Towering neon lit TV screens that were multiple stories high blared out advertising at us. Whole skyscraper buildings were changing random colours and cars whizzed by everywhere.
You would think finding a taxi outside a railways station would be the easiest thing in the world….it wasnt. We towed our bags through the mayhem and were nearly run over by a car as we crossed the road….it was a taxi! The Operator stood in front waving his arms while Rosie jumped in, within 3 minutes we were outside out Tokyo apartment.
OMG it is a teeny tiny place! Rosie cannot believe that people actually buy these apartments to seriously live in, one on top of the other. This apartment like every other in this 12 story building was 20 meters square, the bed was in the lounge, the tiny kitchen was in the hall way that lead from the bathroom to the lounge. I cannot show you around much more than that because that is all there is.
There wasnt enough room to lie our suitcases down and keep them open for the stay. We got out everything we needed for four days and sat our suitcases in the open wardrobe, cause we could not close it, plus we had to move the coffee table hard against the wardrobe door so we could move the bed over and away from the wall so Rosie wouldnt have to climb over The Operator in the night to go to the loo.
A tiny balcony let in some beautiful fresh air and this is the view from the 12th floor….the night sky has a wonderful luminosity to it from all of the lights. Bet these people who live in Tokyo have never seen a star in their lives….
The plus side, the location of this flat was awesome! We are in the heart of Shinjuku bordering on the red light district of Kabukicho. Shibuya and its craziness is just a hop skip and jump away by subway of which we WILL master…..tomorrow.
Tomorrow we will explore Shinjuku and Shibuya proper….cant wait to show you around.
