Checklist - 8/2/'14
After a tiring flight we have finally arrived at Narita airport. Except for the first shock that we were missing the suitcase of Hugo, the check-in was uneventfully.
After declaring nothing special at customs, we set up our base outside the arrival gate and set out to gather:
- Japanese rail passes,
- Pasmo's (Japanese ov-card),
- a mobile internet dongle,
- Japanese "pingels".
After some confusion at the ATM machine, we were largely successfully. The route to the metro station took some work to find, but Jens took charge and guided us.
It took quite a long time to register all rail passes and to reserve our train seats. During this delay we had time to:
- install whatsapp,
- download Japanese,
- get coffee*,
- panic about the ov-cards,
- panic about maps,
- take pictures,
- write stuff,
- annoy the locals.
*(side note) apparently you can get a Starbucks coffee here for 300 to 400 pingels. The coins are also very thin and feel like money.
After we finished all this we had to hand in the ov-cards again because they didn't contain enough money, or not, I was very confused by like 7 pieces of paper. But we could check into the metro so it turned out fine.
We took the Keisen-line to Yenisei and got a pleasant surprise. When we got out of a tunnel we saw that it was snowing. We weren't to concerned but when we went into Tokyo we were proven wrong.
Snow everywhere, a few centimeter per hour. So we could walk to a snowy Tokyo and after we left the hostel to get lunch we travelled in small groups. We ended up in a small establishment where the owner could not speak English but she had an English translation of the card, so we managed. It was a good opportunity to practice our "arigato" and "sayounara".
We also tried to buy a box with four six-packs of beer in a supermarket after lunch, but the lady behind the register accidentally charge an us for four of the boxes. We weren't sure of this and when we checked and tried to ask, the lady did no speak English. Luckily for us we could enlist the help of a local person who did and eventually we sorted it out.
After our lunch we returned to the hostel to determine who slept where. I ended up in the 10 men room, but at least it is with only members of the studytour. We could stash our luggage and relax in the lounge and kitchen/dining room of the hostel for a bit. After everyone was settled in, which took quite some time, it was already time to leave for dinner.
So we left the hostel in groups of five to look for places to eat. Our group ended up at a BBQ place. Where there was a grill in the center of the table which we could use to grill meat. It was a very pleasant meal and surprisingly inexpensive. I had been led to believe meat was expensive, but it cost us only 10 k pingels for five people, which is about 14 Euro per person.
After dinner we braved the streets of Tokyo once more. It was snowing more and more. We couldn't even see our own tracks from before dinner. We went looking for breakfast. As we would need to leave early tomorrow. And we were quite succesful. We bought "bento" boxes. A sort of plastic plate with a large meal in it which costs only 250 yen. We stored them in the fridge of our hostel to nuke tomorrow morning.
We just learned that some buses are not going and even train might be off, due to the snow. We will see if we need to change our plans for tomorrow, but the snows should blow over and we can always switch some days around.
Even some of the night time activities were cancelled, the pub crawl we wanted to join for example. Luckily for us the hostel has a lounge. And the bar man had stocked up on sake. Which could be served hot, to counter the cold outside. So while some of of the others were brave enough to go through the snow to look for other nice places, we spend our evening drinking warm drinks and socializing with the other hostel guests.
Anyway it's time for bed now. We will see what tomorrow brings.
By: Tim Broenink