From Narita to Asakusa

If you've read from the beginning of the blog, you know we stayed in Asakusa. Before I talk about that, probably in a separate post, I want to mention our experience arriving in Japan, immigration, etc.

We made advance reservations for cell phones and purchased vouchers for JR Rail Passes in Atlanta, so we had to take care of these things at Narita Airport before taking off for Tokyo. We disembarked from the plane and entered the airport to near-silence. It was amazing and wonderful. The insanity of Atlanta-Hartsfield, followed by 12 hours of engine hum had left us tired. Not to mention the 12 hours without nicotine for me...

Honestly, I don't remember everything very clearly, but the airport was well-signed and we didn't have any problems finding where to go next. The Immigration stop was quick, easy and well...quick! No bags checked despite my maniacal organization of them back in the States. I was almost disappointed that no one would see my neatly rolled and bagged socks. Hmmpf. Once we had our bags and cleared Immigration, we went to the lobby. The information desk staff is very helpful. If you travel to Japan with limited Japanese, don't hesitate to use these services when they are available. The staff won't make fun of your Japanese and their English is typically quite good, particularly in places with high foreigner traffic.

Incidentally, learn to say this: "Oteari wa doko desu ka?" But be prepared for rapid-fire response. Look confused and the person speaking will point a lot and try better to explain. Oh, it means, "Where is the restroom?" I asked this more than anything else during our trip!

We located the JP office- hard to miss with the giant green JR Rail sign out front. Exchanging our vouchers for passes was simple. We just showed our passports, gave them the exchange vouchers and a form which I had completed in advance, but that they had available there, too, had I forgotten or not known about it. Too easy!

I then located the cell phone rental company, who had our phones and contract ready to go, including some printed usage and return instructions in English. We never really used the phones much, but wanted to have two in case we were ever separated or had an emergency. Small fee for some huge peace of mind for two women traveling in a country where we didn't know the systems or understand the language very well. I highly recommend it. If your own phone has a sim card, you can rent a phone that will accept it; this affects your rates, phone number, etc. I chose to forego this option because I was convinced I'd lose the phone and therefore the sim card, leaving my personal phone useless upon my return home. Yes, I am ridiculously paranoid.

All of the pre-business was now complete (and I'd had a couple of trips to the smoking box outside, heehee), so we were ready to go! We stopped at the JR ticket counter (a different location than the main office, but the airport is organized well for all of this trotting about), and we purchased our reserved seats for the train to Tokyo. It looked lind of like this:


The train wasn't very crowded, so seating wouldn't have been a problem without the reserved seats, but when you're that tired, you don't take chances! I think we bought tickets for the wrong train because this one had a lot of stops. When we left Tokyo for our flight home, we were on a nicer train that didn't stop. But it got us where we wanted to go, so no harm done. After about an hour, we arrived at Tokyo station. Wow. Busy, bustling, crowded, incredibly alien and exciting!!!!

Don't worry if you can't read a lot of Japanese. Quite a few signs are in English (other languages, too, but this is after all, a blog written in English...). The signs above are for shinkansen lines, so if you're planning to use them, take heart; it was very easy to do.

This is a typical turnstile thingy. You hold your ticket close to its mouth and it inhales with vicious force and sucks your ticket into its hungry maw. It doesn't seem to like the taste of tickets, though and spits it back at you as you pass through. The beast must slurp nutrients out of the ticket as it digests it or something. I don't know. An important note: If you are using a JR pass, DO NOT try to feed it to the beasty! Look to the left or right, and on one side of the row of turnstiles, you will see a nice uniformed man (sometimes a woman, but seems like it was almost always a man). He may be in an enclosed booth with a door, or at a large ticket-type window, but find him. Show him your pass and maybe your passport if you look shady (errr, that's a joke, I hope, since I had to show mine once or twice) and he will wave you through. As you become comfortable with using the trains, you will soon begin to feel superior to everyone else because you won't have to wait in line to feed your ticket to the turnstile.

The superiority will be knocked clean out of you, though, when you need to show your pass and are quietly forced to wait until all of the Japanese customers with questions have been helped. It's just the way it is, so stand to the side, smile, and wait. Anything other than that will not get you faster service. The reason for this, per my observations, is that the uniformed man doesn't know if you need to ask a question or not and wants to clear the line in case either you or he will be placed in a position where you may be embarrassed by any potential language barrier. Seriously, don't take this personally. You've probably done something similar in your own country when faced with a foreigner who doesn't speak your language, so don't get offended. Trains run constantly. You won't miss yours. I'm sure some of the "NJ Rights" folks on the internet will disagree with my summation, but again- my blog, my opinion :)

To be continued...