JAPAN: Travel Day 1

 

I’ve traveled many places in my life but none have intimidated me more than the thought of travel in Japan. For instance I got many street maps of Tokyo and can’t find street names.  Then someone tells me that many streets aren’t unnamed!  How the hell am I going to find my hotel?  The travel is also intimidating. I’ve lost a lot of sleep worrying about this trip.

And the 13.5 hour flight from DFW to Tokyo’s Narita airport was worrisome because the only seats we could get were two in the middle, one behind the other.  We’ve never had seats this bad. But talking to the agents in both Denver and Dallas helped.  We ended up with two aisle bulkhead seats on the same row WITH NO ONE BETWEEN US. We had 4 seats!

When we finally got to Tokyo (Was it only 13.5 hours?) we witnessed Japanese efficiency.  Upon entering Japan everyone is fingerprinted, personally photographed and their passport is photographed.   The line was long but it moved fast. There were 10 fingerprint/photo stations and 16 customs agents.  We were through in no time.

We wanted (1) a train ticket to the downtown train station (72 miles from the airport), (2) a ticket to Kanazawa tomorrow, (3) exchange our certificates for Japan Rail for boarding passes and (4) make reservations for later trips to Kyoto, Hiroshima and Tokyo.  Well we got numbers 1 and 3 done fairly easily. The others  can be done later.

You can set your watch by train arrival, two minutes before published departure times. Another efficiency I’ve never seen before is  markings on the pavement telling you where your car will stop. We were on car 8 and the door stopped directly in front of the #8 marking.  The baggage racks in the front and back of the cars are equipped with chains and locks so you can lock your luggage.  But I’ve heard that thievery is rare in Japan.

It took a little searching to find our hotel, but we didn’t have to get to street level.

So, at the end of day one, I feel much better!  But my two attempts at chop-sticks have been pretty poor.