Last fall, a travel guy I follow called Johnny Jet suggested ANA’s budget airline, ZipAir to Japan. They had screaming one-way deals to Tokyo until March 24, 2023. I bought a one-way ticket for about $300 to Narita from LAX.
And so, after a lot of planning, here I am in Tokyo. I found out what the Zip stands for; nothing, nada, zip. There were no pillows, blankets, entertainment options, or on-time departure. I had to pay for water, tea, coffee, wine, and two meals. They were both delicious. The first was beef with turmeric rice and the second was ravioli.
I sat next to a young guy named Ethan who was born in Vietnam, raised in LA, but now works as a software engineer for Raytheon. He did his undergrad at Carnegie Mellon and taught at Pitt. Small world. He was born with one leg shorter than the other and now has sciatica and seemed to be in pretty terrible pain the entire trip. I did get some sleep after he moved to an empty row.
Japan uses an app for arrivals/customs/vaccination. I had pre-filled in the details in the app but for me, and clearly, about half the flight, the app didn’t work. I’ll save you some serious frustration, but I’ll just let you know – I WAS NOT PRESENTED WITH A QR CODE. Not ever. So once they finally let me and my vaccination card through to the immigration area, the line was about two hours long.
I had already visited the bathroom, thank goodness. That’s a definite issue with solo travel: there’s no tag-teaming. I had this problem in Russia too. No one to hold onto bags or wait in the queue while the other figures out what in the world is going on.
Toilets in Japan are as wonderful as I’d heard. The seats are warm and the bidet options are incredible. There’s a little trickle of water or music from the toilet to disguise the sound of one using the toilet. This is even in public toilets. The toilet and bathroom in my hotel room are even nicer.
So first the wait and confusion for the vaccination check, then the long, long wait for my passport stamp. Then I found the line for the Japan Rail pass. About 1500 of us had obviously previously purchased the pass but the voucher needed to be exchanged for the real thing there and then.
I thought the line for the train might go down as I searched for cash, a Suica card (transport and food), a SIM card, and food. I ended up with a broccoli and shrimp sandwich from Lawson. Etiquette in Japan says not to eat standing up near the place you bought the food. Too bad because I was too hungry and there didn’t appear to be a bench or seat anywhere.
The train line was longer. I got in it. Then they closed that line and made everyone go stand in another line. It looked like a stampede or Lord of the Flies. By now hours had passed since I landed. I waited another hour to get the train pass and the very kind young man put me on the next Narita Express to Tokyo which left about 45 minutes later. I went back to Lawson’s convenience store and got another sandwich, sweet treats of unknown contents, and wine in a sort of juice box. Yippee!
They were actually cleaning the train before we could get on it. Which I did and my head bobbed the whole hour to Shinjuku Station. I was so, so happy just to sit down. When I arrived at the right station, it was already late on Saturday night and people were ending their evenings out saying and waving goodbye. Waving and waving and waving goodbye to each other seemed important. There were A LOT of people in the massive station. I just walked with purpose till I found a way out to the street, then I turned on Google Maps. Miraculously I had exited the station at the right place because I was only 8 minutes walk to my hotel. There were neon lights like Times Square and Piccadilly Circus on steroids. I was directed down a pedestrian street here in Shinjuku and found my tall, fancy hotel called Hotel Gracery Shinjuku. I’m on the 18th floor and it’s pretty amazing. My room is clever, clean, small, and tidy. I was and am still confused about the shower/bath situation, but I opted for the bath with a shower rinse. It was like heaven. I can’t tell if the whole room is the shower and the floor will drain. It’s probably really cool but I don’t want to flood my room till I check with reception.
I unpacked enough to find PJs and dropped into bed. The bed is firm but fine. The pillow is really firm and the bottom side of it has four thick rows of what feels like the filling of a cornhole bag. Now, of course, I have woken up way too early and I’m starving, so I think I’ll just get up and figure things out. It’s going to rain today, but since Ginza is pedestrian on weekends, I had better head there, despite what my AI-generated itinerary said to do. I’d be happy to explore Shinjuku, get some solid food, especially if it’s ramen, get to any museum to start using my pass, and see Ginza. We saw cherry blossoms everywhere as we were landing, but since I’ve arrived at a special time for that, I’ll go find some more.
My mom and I talked about re-wearing clothes. Generally fine with me, but I certainly don’t want to wear my travel clothes again till they get washed. Traveling is messy and sweaty and it just kind of makes your clothes feel gross. So I have a pile of laundry already. I’m not sure what my options for that are here, but other places I’ve booked seem to have a guest laundry option. I’ve only got a carry-on of clothes and some of them wouldn’t be warm enough, so getting the first set of clothes washed is a little more urgent than you would presume.
And now I must find food if I don’t decide to go back to sleep. (I went back to sleep then found food.)
