Next Stop Tokyo

Visiting Japan has been on the cards for a long time and I am soooooooo glad that I’ve managed to squeeze it into my Asia trip.

From Shanghai I flew to the capital of Japan, Tokyo. The flight landed at Haneda airport in the early hours of the morning at which time the Tokyo Monorail was closed. The Monorail runs from 5am to 12:10am daily and I had to either wait for it to open or an alternative option was to take an extortionatly priced taxi. By the time I collected my luggage, I had less than a two-hour wait till the Monorail opened. I decided to wait for the monorail to open and make use of the time I had to use the free wi-fi, put my feet up and plan the rest of my day.

The journey from Haneda airport to Tokyo central is fairly easy. Take the Tokyo Monorail from the airport to Hammatsucho station which takes approximately 20 mins and from there the JR Yamanote or JR Keihin-Tohoku line to Tokyo Station which is only about 4-5 min journey. That entire trip costs approximately 650 Yen. There are lifts at each station, so if you have baggage you shouldn’t have any trouble but be warned at some stations you will be faced with stairs so be prepared to carry your case.

I made my way to my hotel first so I could dump my luggage and freshen up. During my stay in Tokyo I was staying at the E Hotel Higashi, Shinjuku. The bonus of this hotel was that it was literally right next to the Higashi Shinjuku subway station so getting about was easy. Please click here for the full review of my stay at the E Hotel.

So, my time in Tokyo was very short. I had three days to explore and I wanted to make the most of every minute I had. Prior to getting to Tokyo I had done a fair bit of research and noted down the things I really wanted to do and see whilst I was there. I will have another blog post following this post detailing what I did during my three days visit.

Getting around Tokyo is fairly easy via the subway. The most confusing part was buying the tickets. Reason for the confusion is there are two companies that operate the lines, Toei subway which has 4 lines and Tokyo metro with 9 lines. Beware that some of the day passes only cover lines from one company, others cover both. Personally I think unless you are using the subway a lot you are better off paying per journey or buying a prepaid card. I decided to get the Pasmo top up travel card (bit like the London Oyster card). Having this card made it easy to travel as I didn’t need to queue up and get tickets so saved a lot of time and faffing around. The subway trains are so spacious and clean, makes the London underground trains look like poop haha. There are some rules on the subway that you need to follow, there are the standard ones such as no smoking, ensure if you are sitting on a priority seat to give it up for elderly, expectant moms, disabled commuters. Then there are a couple that may not be familiar, insure your phone is on silent and avoid answering calls and there are women only carts during rush hours so keep your eyes peeled for them signs when entering a cart.

After being in Tokyo for just a day, I fell in love with the place and the people. All the local people I met were SOOOOOOO friendly and always went out of their way to help. Not knowing any Japanese it made it difficult to communicate with many people but that didn’t stop them from trying. There are two situations that really stick out for me. On one occasion I was a little lost and struggling to find my way around. I asked a passerby for some help. He was so keen to help that rather than direct me to where I needed to go or show me on google maps, he guy actually walked me to where I needed to go. I am still in shock, things like this never happen in the UK. This happened a good few times during my time in Tokyo, I got lost a lot haha. When I’ve ever been a tourist in London and I’ve asked someone for directions, I’ve been lucky to get a response. Most people would just ignore you and walk off or point in the direction you need to go. The people of Japan that I met really took time out to help.

The second situation occurred when myself and a friend were stood on the footpath (probably looking rather confused) trying to figure out where we should go to eat. A couple randomly stopped to ask if we were ok and began to suggest some restaurants to try. During this conversation another gentleman stopped to ask what was going on haha. The couple explained to the gentleman in Japanese that we were after somewhere good to eat. The gentleman introduced himself to us as Tom and said that he was hungry too and he recommended a Tempura restaurant further down the street and we could eat together. As I have never experienced a situation like this, it was all a bit strange that people were so helpful and even wanted us to join them for dinner…I couldn’t get my head round it but loved it. So we went along to this Tempura restaurant, I have to say I was a little on edge to begin with as I was thinking he had some agenda and I’ve watched the movie Taken far too many times, so I was over thinking everything lol. But then I relaxed and realised that he just wanted some company and wanted to enjoy dinner with someone. It was great!! We enjoyed some amazing food and had a great chat and got to know one another. This is the first time I have experienced anything like this and i really wish it would happen more often. We have become such an anti-social society…glued to our phones and communicating via whatapp, text, social media that we have forgotten how to enjoy each others company face to face.

I fell in love with Japan and the people.

I will have another blog post coming shortly after this one with a break down of all the places I visited, where I ate etc.

For now its time to pack up my bags again and make my way to the next destination, Hong Kong. This time I’m flying from Narita airport. It’s a little further away than Haneda but still easy to get to. It’s a one hour journey from Tokyo central on the Narita Express and costs 3000 Yen.

Japan is definitely a destination I will go back to one day. I’m almost half way through my trip and I don’t want it to end. Time to explore and make more memories.

Sayonara for now!