My flight touched down in Narita at about 9:00 pm, almost half an hour ahead of schedule. It's my first time in Japan--Asia even--I'm alone, and I don't know a word of Japanese. For some reason I'm nervous... huh, go figure.
It's a long walk from the gate to the immigration checkpoint, and by the time I've made it through, the bags are already on the carousel. My bags in hand, it's now time for customs, and my first interaction with a Japanese person. The customs officer spoke to me in Japanese (obviously) and I just stared wide-eyed for a few seconds before finally saying, "I don't speak Japanese." Narita's a huge airport, with tons of international flights, so the customs officers all speak English, and I was worried over nothing. For the moment.
After customs, a lot less people spoke English, and I went to the bathroom twice before mustering up the courage to talk to the people at the information desk. I found out that I needed to take a bus to Keio Station Hachioji, unfortunately they didn't say which one before grabbing their things and heading out. I guess no one who gets to Tokyo after 10:00 needs information. Three counters, two maps of places I'm not going to and some sort of internet pamphlet later, I wind up at the airport limousine desk out of desperation, and it turns out that is where i need to be and--luckily--the lady speaks enough English to figure out what I'm saying. I had looked up Hachioji relative to Tokyo before, and it said it was ~45 minutes away depending on how you travel, so I was really confused and worried when My ticket was 3700 yen and 150 minutes (or maybe an hour and 50 minutes, it's hard to tell when you don't speak the language), but it had Hachioji in romaji as well as kanji, so I decided I had screwed up earlier, and went with the ticket. The bus stop had two staff to guide us into the correct lines and help with luggage, and every time a "limousine" drove by they bowed. The bus itself was just a normal long distance bus, and was empty except for the Chinese family that got on with me and two Japanese people who got on later.The bus ride was uneventful: highways in Tokyo are mostly toll roads with nice pavements and even nicer walls to block the sounds of traffic, so I couldn't see very much besides a few billboards. Yep, that's Japanese.
The fun part was after the bus got to Hachioji. Japanese addresses are weird, so I had trouble finding a map or the location of my hotel before I got to Hachioji, and even if I had, there are few street names, so it would have been next to impossible to figure out where I was on said map. I asked my driver if he knew where my hotel was and he looked confused then ran away. I was even more confused than he looked until I saw him move the bus out of the stop to a place where he could park it and come back. He asked a random pedestrian who also had no clue and he looked really dismayed before finally he got the idea to ask a cabbie, which worked instantly. I half guessed at what the cabbie was saying and it worked! The hotel was just around the corner, and I walked straight to it from the bus stop, without any problems. Checking in was a bit interesting, as it was 11:30, and the only person at the front desk didn't speak much English, but I showed her a screen shot of my reservation and the paperwork I needed to fill out had English, so I was able to catch a break there. One thing that caught me by surprise was after she held up a tooth brush and razor and asked, "You have shaver tooth brush?", I said no and she ducked down and pulled up two bags with TEN OF EACH! Do people really use a different razor and toothbrush everyday here?
I found my room on the tenth floor, and it is small, but it's cheap and has everything I need.
Finally, the 12 hour flight, 90 minute bus ride and constant worrying caught up with me. I put my bags down, turned off the lights and flopped in bed...Only to be surprised by a hard pillow. I opened up the pillowcase to find a mesh bag of plastic tubes as a pillow. I don't know if it's that I'm used to sleeping on my arm, or that I was completely exhausted, but I fell asleep with no problem.
No comments:
Post a Comment