Today we had to wake up at the lovely hour of 02:45 in order to get to the airport. Dad drove Mum and I in and dropped us off. He did not park the car, unlike last time around Anna did not come to say goodbye.
We were the first people in line for check-in for the flight to Narita, the JAL staff did a traditional assembly style group bow right before opening the checking counters opened. The Swissport contractors that handle check-in for a myriad of different airlines in Melbourne were also instructed to join in as well.
The rest of the airport process including immigration was rather uneventful. After clearing all of that we went to Brunetti for a ‘Melbourne Coffee’ and a ham and cheese croissant it was ok but I made a massive mess with all the crumbs.
The wait for the plane was ok, I was a bit nervous and walked around the airport by myself for a bit. The plane boarded at about 07:15. Our plane was a Boeing 787-8 which was about 10 years old.
The food on the plane was really good, we had 2 meals in total on the 10-hour flight.
I watched Silver Linings Playbook during the first quarter of the flight. I tried to sleep while we were flying over PNG but was not really able to. I really dislike when they turn the lights off on a plane. But luckily this time I was able to use the internet over the Pacific (amazing I know – Qantas Group it’s really good). As a result, I was able to alleviate my boredom by sending messages to people like Anna.
Our plane arrived in Narita at 15:32 JST, it was the first time I have had a daylight arrival into Narita. It was really pretty.
Japanese immigration and customs and the process of getting the JR pass was really easy and we were on the 16:48 Narita Express into Tokyo. I was really exhausted though but it was OK.
We got to Tokyo station at 17:45 and transferred straight for the Yamanote line to Okachimachi. We will be staying at the same Ryokan that I usually stay at in Akihabara.
Upon getting into the hotel room, I was really tired and did really know what to do with myself. I had a very quick shower before going out into Akihabara to go for Gyoza Ramen and go to the Shosen book tower to get my train timetable book 時刻表. The Shosen book tower is one of my favourite bookshops in the world as it pretty much has an entire floor dedicated to books and other merchandise of interest to people who like trains.
After this we decided to go the Yodobashi Camera shop in Akiba. The Yodobashi music made me feel really happy. I bought some facemasks at the Daiso upstairs.
I then decided that riding a Shinkansen would make me feel really happy so that is exactly what we did. We caught a local train to Tokyo station getting the Akihabara station stamp on the way. Then we got a Toki Shinkansen bound for Niigata to Omiya.
Omiya was an important location in the Japan season of ‘Jet Lag: The Game’ (one of my favourite YouTube/Nebula series’). At Omiya, we got the station stamp as well as a スタンプオート(stamp note) book to put our stamps into. Our train back into Ueno was a Yamabiko of which we got on the Mini-Shinkansen E6 (which is usually used for the Akita Shinkansen).
The Shinkansen ride was a lot of fun. Upon our arrival at Ueno we got the station stamp and the digital stamp on エキタグ (station tag).
We got back to the hotel at around about 10 and I was asleep at about 11:20 I think. It was a totally massive day.