Day 1 (Monday): Arriving in Ginza, Tokyo

My plane got to Tokyo on time (around 3:30PM local time the next day) and it was nice and sunny. I popped into the bathroom right after getting off the plane and was unexpectedly hit with my first bit of Japan. Heated toilet seats complete with built-in bidet are a common occurrence in Tokyo public washrooms. It didn't matter if I was in a washroom at an upper establishment, a fast food place like KFC or at a subway station restroom. I wasn't brave enough to have my first bidet experience at Narita so I skipped over the spray button and went straight to flush. I knew my cellphone (HTC Touch, a GSM North American tri-band) wasn't going to get any reception but I turned it on anyways to see what would happen. Nothing, as I suspected. If you live in North America and are looking to take your cellphone in hopes of roaming while in Japan, you will need a 3G HSPA phone that will operate on the 2100Mhz band, something like the North American Blackberry Bold or Apple iPhone 3G/S.

Travelling from the gate to Immigration and Customs was eerily silent. I guess I had fallen to the back of the pack and had those walking escalators all to myself. Signs welcoming you adorned the walls along the way.

Japan recently implemented a new policy so I was fingerprinted and had my picture taken at the immigration stop. Leading up to Immigration, there were several signs concerning rules and warnings and each sign had its own little cute cartoon mascot. No wonder it's the land of kawaii.

If you've planning on staying in Tokyo, it's a good idea to get the Narita Express + Suica Card package when you're at Narita offered by the JR East Train Company. The Narita Express is an express train that will take you non-stop into Tokyo in approximately an hour. It's located way underground Narita so you will have to take a set of escalators downwards. Once you're in Tokyo, subway fare is calculated by the distance you actually travelled and is not a straight standard fare rate each time. Tokyo has something like 18 different subway lines which are operated by different companies. Having said that, almost all the lines are operated by the Tokyo Metro Subway or the JR. The Suica Card is a swipe/recharge card that allows you to get on virtually all the subway lines regardless of who operates the lines and takes the guess work out of calculating the distance for each trip.

I can't imagine what it was like in the past when you had to have a separate ticket system for each line! When you swipe in with your card to enter the station, it will display how much money you have left on the card. When you swipe out at your destination station, it will display how much the trip cost and the amount remaining on your card. If you read all the travel books on Tokyo such as the Lonely Planet series, they will mention that the two systems (Tokyo Metro and JR) have their own swipe cards (the Suica for the JR and Passnet for the Metro) which are not interchangeable between lines. Well, those are a little outdated because as of I believe March of 2007, you can now use either cards on both lines (the Metro card is now called Passmo from Passnet). I used my Suica card on both Tokyo Metro, JR and Yukimore Lines (the unmanned train that goes to Odaiba, the man-made island) and it was a breeze to use and refill with credits. The ticket machines all have English instructions. I always kept plenty of credits on my card and you can actually use your card to buy things at stores within the station also like snacks and such. The Suica card works on proximity so you don't have to take it out and literally swipe it like a credit card every time. So if you have it in your wallet, you can just swipe your wallet over the reader.

I hopped on board the Narita Express which is cleaned by a cleaning crew with each trip into Narita. All the things I heard about Japan being really neat and clean were proving true. During the ride, an attendant came down the aisle with a trolley selling a variety of snacks and beverages. For the first 30 minutes or so, looking out the window of the train reminded me of the journey the family in My Neighbour Totoro took to their new home at the beginning of the movie. I observed mainly fields and fields of rice divided nicely into plots. The sun was starting to set and I could see Mt. Fuji in the distance. After 30 minutes, that's when I started getting glimpses of actual building structures and the bright lights that lined the city streets that I had only seen in pictures and movies. The density of those lights increased with each passing minute as our trained screamed into Tokyo outrunning the regular trains on parallel lines.

Once I got off the train and into the belly of Tokyo Station, the sheer number of people moving with a purpose was a little overwhelming at first. I took comfort in the fact though that there were many people with large bags who were travelling in and out of Tokyo Station as I was. The signs in Tokyo Station (as a matter of fact all Subway/Train Stations) were in English so it was very easy to follow on how to get out. When in doubt however, just go with the flow and follow the crowd. It really does works in Tokyo. I took a series of flights of escalators (3?) it seemed to finally reach surface level. I followed the signs to the Central Exit figuring that's where I would most easily find a cab to get to my hotel. I knew the distance from Tokyo Station to my hotel which was located in the Ginza area of Tokyo was only a 20 minute walk or so but with it being night and not knowing anything, I didn't want to even attempt it. I love the honour system that's used by taxis in Tokyo. Taxis line up along the street in order and a fare/passenger will use the first taxi in line. All the taxi's then move up one spot with newer taxis joining the line at the end. There's no competition or screaming taxis vying for your coveted fare. Taxi doors also open and close automatically so don't reach for the handle.

I pointed out the location of the hotel on my map book but could tell he was having difficulty reading it so I just told him to take me to Ginza-Itchome "Eki" (or Station) as my hotel was located right beside it. He had GPS (infact, all the cars I peered into while in Tokyo seemed to have GPS) so he followed the directions it was giving. We were there in a jiffy and it only cost 710 Yen (I think that's the base rate because another cab ride I took later in the week cost the same amount…it could be coincidence though).The hotel I stayed in was the Hotel Monterey Ginza.

I chose this hotel in particular because it got great online reviews (including mine now – scroll down until you see a review from "Andy K" from Toronto) from Expedia users for being clean, reasonably priced and central in location to everything (the reviews turned out to be 100% correct in all those respects.

BTW, I booked my entire trip through expedia.ca. If there is an online option to do something, I generally use it. It was my first experience using Expedia and it was smooth. I practiced before hand on what to say once I got to the hotel to check-in but after speaking the first few Japanese greeting phrases, I basically resorted back to English. The hotel had my reservation and I was up in my room in no time. The room was everything I could ask for. It was big enough, very clean, had a small filled refrigerator (Tea, Coke, Beer…), flat screen monitor and a nice washroom complete with heated toilet seat and bidet. If it lacked anything, I would have to say it was closet space.

The English spoken by the staff varied from OK to very good depending on whom you talked to and I never had any problems in communicating at all. My flight arrived in Tokyo at 3:30PM local and it was about 7:30PM or so when I finally got all settled into my hotel. The hotel had a communal laptop in the lobby which I used to communicate via email back home. Here's a quick video of what about $100CAN/night got me in the heart of Ginza, Tokyo:

I knew I was going to be tired on my arrival day so I deliberate made the next day, Tuesday, a day to explore Ginza so I wouldn't have to venture far out on my first full day. I could start with my surrounding areas and get comfortable with Tokyo at a leisurely pace. Having said that, I wasn't sleepy at all and decided to venture out after getting settled to get a sneak peak at what tomorrow would hold.

It was just an amazing feeling walking down the street and to finally be in Tokyo amidst its people and just taking in the atmosphere.

Ginza is known as the fashion district of Tokyo and it showed immediately. Everyone I passed on the streets and I literally mean everyone was really well dressed and made up and extremely attractive. The streets were littered with designer clothes and department stores. I mainly went up and down a few of the main streets just taking in the sights and the funky light shows that lit up many of the faces of the buildings like the Chanel building here:

I popped into the Apple Store which was 4 floors of Apple goodness with a glass elevator that obligatorily stopped at all floors.

I didn't realize Apple was that big in Japan but it seemed to be quite popular judging by the size and scope of this flagship store. I passed by the Sony Building and found it funny that the Sony and Toshiba building are right beside each other.

I was in Tokyo when Blu-ray won and it was making headlines on the news there.

I was looking for a place to eat which would turn out to be a little bit of an adventure during my stay. I don't eat much seafood, I'm allergic to shellfish, and I don't eat a lot of meat but when I do it's normally chicken (I'll eat beef but don't like pork except if its bacon). That unfortunately ruled out a good many of the native dishes in Japan. They are quite heavy on tempura shrimp and pork. I wanted to eat as authentically as possible during my stay. On my way back to my hotel, I ran into a couple from Anchorage Alaska who were on their 2nd last day in Tokyo and asked them if they knew of any good places to eat. They pointed out this complex down the street that housed 4 restaurants each with a different theme (Japanese, Tex Mex, Italian and something else). They also mentioned that they were having trouble finding breakfast places and were relegated to going to Starbucks every morning. I ended up going to the Japanese one they pointed out and had a bowl of soba (buckwheat noodles). There were a lot of "gaijins" (or foreigners) mixed with Japanese people on business dinners from the looks of it. I also got to check out a Pachinko arcade that was rammed with salary men smoking away and playing with intensity.

Pachinko seemed to be like a cross between pinball and slots. It was also the loudest thing I've ever heard.

It was quite deafening just standing there watching people play. I went back to my hotel to attempt to get some sleep. I think I had been up for 36 hours straight at this point. I ended up getting about 2 hours of sleep that night.