22 October 2017
The journey is still not quite over
From Narita to Ikebukuro on the NEX
This is a kind of a micro update. Might even turn out to be one of the rare 3 update days.
The reason for this is I am now on the NEX train to Ikebukuro, one of the main centres of Tokyo, and despite it being a special airport express, it still takes about 90 minutes.
So I might as well type some more nonsense and share the last of my boring photos of things no one in their right mind would be interested in.
First the flight, what a contrast. This time it was a 777 rather than an A330, so it was very mechanically noisy and 9 across instead of 8 across seating, but there were no children, NONE. Its as if someone read my previous threats above and decided to remove them from the plane. I actually walked around and looked before landing, despite being a totally full flight, zero children.
The flight was full of teenage girls, both Japanese and Singaporean, as well as a few Australians who tended to be older, older then me and I am old.
It seems going to Japan is a thing for girls to do, so as I suspected, I am quite girly.
Then, I even managed to get some sleep, I am guessing about 3 hours, but that should be enough to keep me going for the remainder of today without behaving in a manner which is dangerous, such as falling down stairs, or crossing roads without looking due to extreme tiredness.
The immagration queues were fine, but then my bag was not there, I waited a long time, finally I decided to walk around the huge carousel thing and there was a Japanese woman holding a sign saying priority baggage in one hand, and my bag in the other.
I guess she had been standing there since before the regular bags even started coming out.
Here is my childless 777, after the earlier flight, the plane of my dreams.
As you can see, its pouring massive amounts of rain. The same thing happened last time I arrived in Japan on day 1 if I recall.
The forecast is better for tomorrow, yes I am talking about planes and weather.
Like I said above, the immigration queues were short, but this is the queue to activate a train pass for foreigners, it was not moving at all.
I wanted a different kind of pass, the kind you dont need to buy overseas and activate on landing, so I asked around and found I could go to the standard counter to get the JR All Tokyo 3 day pass.
Its about $100! But I plan a couple of long day trips on the next 2 days, weather permitting.
I am fully aware I am now taking photos of queues for lines I am not even in.
Here is my pocket WiFi thing. Generally I prefer this as I can leave my SIM in my phone to get authentication SMS messages to log into things I need to log into.
However I have found that global roaming seems to have been disabled on my SIM, which is strange, its always worked before.
Might be my hacked stolen rebirthed phone I bought off a Chinese woman on a street corner thats the issue.
Oh well, guess I cant log into my work email or any bank for a month.
Also look at my beautiful hands, I should model watches.
Also there is a reflection of my new camera and a reflection of myself, yet this photo should serve as no reflection on what quality photos should look like, including photos of reflections.
And here I am, I took this photo from a similar spot last time I arrived. I look considerably better this time despite my hair being out of control and appearing grey due to lighting.
Not the appearance of 3 chins, not pleased, yet I do not hide from the truth, as I am the true source of all truth. Fact.