Japan - Day 1

After a 9.5 hour flight from YVR, 2 meals of airplane food and 1 movie, we finally arrive @ the Narita Airport.

We begin to gather our belongings to deboard, but before we can do so, the flight attendants inform us that we have to pass a health check, and ask us to remain in our seats. I was expecting people in hazmat suits with thermal heat sensors in their hands inspecting each individual, however that was not the case, they just sent in a few people with SARS masks on, armed with a pen and check board, they basically just walked up and down the aisle looking at everyone and declared that everyone had a clean bill of health. I guess they really are THAT technologically advanced over there.

We collect our bags from the baggage claim without any hassle and make our way out of the airport and onto our first Road Block, figuring out how to get from the airport to our hotel. I make my first approach on a Japanese woman behind the ticket counter, I ask if she speaks English, she uses sign language to communicate to me that she speaks very little English. I show her the address to our hotel and she informs me that I need to purchase the tickets downstairs and that the next train is in 15 minutes.

Before we can embark on our journey downstairs we need to first rent a cell phone, so that we may contact the folks back home and various contacts here in Japan. I delegate the task to Ly, since he is the 'gadget man' and surprisingly, he complies! After what seems like to be a decade, we finally get our blue flip phone. (Anybody have a picture of it?)

I inform the guys that we have about 5 minutes to navigate our way downstairs, find the ticket office, purchase the tickets and exchange our Japan Rail pass vouchers and catch a high speed bullet train that is almost never late. We all knew very well that we were going to fail at this task; however that did not stop us from being persistent.

We make our way downstairs and easily locate the ticket office, from there, we communicate that we would like to purchase 3 of the Suica packages. The Suica Package is a package (duh!) that is available only to tourists, it basically includes a one-way ticket on the Narita Express Train along with an electronic Subway Pass that is preloaded with 2,000Yen, all for pretty much a couple hundred more Yen than just a stand alone Narita Express ticket.

After that, we head on over next door to exchange our JR Vouchers for some JR Passes. The JR pass allows us to ride their high speed bullet trains, Shinsaken, an unlimited number of times for a 7 day continuous period.

Naturally, we missed our 5 minute window and the next train was a little over an hour wait. So we find a spot to park our bags and Ly volunteered to guard them. While Ly guarded them, Steve went on a mission to find internet access, since he was missing a digit to his contacts number in Japan, while that was going on, I began my exploration of the lower level of the Narita airport. This is where my vending machine photo album began. I stumbled upon a vending machine that carried a Kit Kat drink, naturally, I snapped a quick picture of it to show the folks back home, however, I did not purchase it since I did not have any change on my at the time, and figured that I would have an entire week to try it.

As I was returning to the location where Ly was stationed, I came across a Starbucks, yes, they have a Starbucks in Japan. Embarrassingly enough, I jumped up and down like a silly anime character, when I witnessed it.

During my exploration of the airport, I came across a currency exchange place and noted that a $100 USD would buy me 9,300Yen. I informed Ly of my findings and this is when he discovered his FML in Japan. Before arriving in Japan, he exchanged $1,000 US and $45 CDN in order to purchase 90,000 Yen. However if he had done it here, he would have had a better deal.

After that, we just sat around and waited for the train to arrive, when the time finally arrived, we gathered our belongings and headed for the next part of our journey.