I arrived in Tokyo (well, Narita airport, actually, which is a ways away from downtown Tokyo) yesterday afternoon around 2:00pm Japan time, which is to say around 10:00pm the previous day, PST. The flight was pretty uneventful and pretty painless: there wasn't much leg room at all, but I had two empty seats on each side of me in my row, which was nice since it meant I could stretch out a bit, leave items next to me, and not worry about bothering nearby strangers.
My row was something like this, where X is a filled seat, O an empty seat, and | an aisle:
XOO | X O O X | X X X
... with me being the second X from the left. Sch'yeah.
Once I'd landed, exiting the airport went pretty smoothly, though somewhat confusingly. I had some trouble understanding the guy who checked my passport and issued the temporary visa, which was kind of awkward, but ah well. Same deal when I bought a train ticket to downtown Tokyo. I was also unsure about whether I should make any effort to use the limited Japanese phrases I do know (e.g., arigatou gamizasu--"thank you very much", sumimasen--"Excuse me/sorry") when speaking to someone who knows English relatively well. If they say "Thank you" in English at the end of an interaction, I should too, right? I don't know. Minor concern, anyhow.
This is roughly what the train-station waiting platform looked like. (It's underground at this point, so it's more of a "subway" until later, I guess.)
(Click to enlarge, of course).
The train itself was interesting. It felt well-maintained, it traveled quite smoothly, and it was very clean (I was surprised actually, when it first arrived they barred off the train's entrances for about 15 minutes while staff went through the cars, picking up trash, swiveling seats around (so that they would face "forward" again as the train started back to Tokyo), etc.). I took a few photos out the window, although most didn't turn out well due to motion blur (and the fact that my phone takes about half a second to capture a photo after being triggered).
As you can see, and as you'd expect, it started out pretty rural and gradually became more urban. Overall, it reminded me a lot of a prettier version of Portland mixed with Hawaii, actually.
By the time I arrived downtown, it had started raining relatively heavily, which only exacerbated the Portland-resemblance (though with considerably different architecture). I wandered around trying to find the Sakura House (company owner of my guest house) office for a while, and I can't say that lugging around two heavy bags in the rain was a particularly fun experience. Ay, should have brought an umbrella...
After checking in, I eventually made it via train and walking to my house in/near the Harajuku area. (Getting there was another trying experience in of itself, but we don't really need to hear the rest of that).
My next post shall provide more pictures, some of my house, plus a description of my "adventure" earlier today tracking down a power adapter for my laptop.
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