After a frantic couple of days finishing work and participating in various seasonal festivities we were on our way to Heathrow, all set for our long-awaited journey home to NZ. Our last night was spent with Ine who was visiting from Amsterdam to see David Attenborough live, so it was lovely to have some time with her, albeit it brief.
We had an okay flight from London to Tokyo, flying Virgin Atlantic as part of Air New Zealand Star Alliance. Neither of us really slept so we were pretty knackered on arrival at Narita airport, but the highly efficient Japanese systems meant navigating immigration, customs and arranging to store our packs for a couple of days was a breeze. Then we jumped on the train bound for central Tokyo. Narita airport is a long way from the city, and we had opted for the budget option meaning a very slow trip, but it was interesting to people watch (ie laugh at the mask-wearers and people falling asleep on each other!) and see the passing scenery as the housing became more and more dense the closer we got to the centre.
Arriving at our hotel in Shinjuku we were fascinated by our ultra tiny room and fancy toilet complete with several different including wash, dry and running water sound effects! Deciding that food, followed by a shower and sleep were our biggest priorities we headed down to the hotel cafe to grab a quick bite to eat before crashing out in our room. Waking to our alarm a couple of hours later we could've easily done with a several more hours, but dragged ourselves out of bed and got ready to head out.
We started by exploring the area around our hotel, beginning with the world's biggest train station, Shijuku, which services an estimated 3.5 million passengers each day. Shinjuku is divided into two distinct neighbourhoods, Nishi-Shinjuku where our hotel was, dominated by towering skyscrapers of steel and glass. The other part is the chaotic East side where you tend to spend most of your time walking around with your neck craning up and and around at all the madness. Spotting several Pachinko parlours, we decided to try our luck, walking out of there 10 minutes later slightly poorer and with our ears ringing from the sound of the electronic sound effects and the defeaning rattle of the tiny balls passing through the machines.
After wandering around for awhile we grabbed some dinner at a neat fas tfood place, where you basically choose your style of noodle and then add whatever sauces, meat and tempura seafood and veges to accompany it. The best bit was slurping the noodles as noisily as we could along with all the other Japanese people in the busy restaurant. Then, with the jetlag setting in we headed back to our minuscule room for an early night.
We had an okay flight from London to Tokyo, flying Virgin Atlantic as part of Air New Zealand Star Alliance. Neither of us really slept so we were pretty knackered on arrival at Narita airport, but the highly efficient Japanese systems meant navigating immigration, customs and arranging to store our packs for a couple of days was a breeze. Then we jumped on the train bound for central Tokyo. Narita airport is a long way from the city, and we had opted for the budget option meaning a very slow trip, but it was interesting to people watch (ie laugh at the mask-wearers and people falling asleep on each other!) and see the passing scenery as the housing became more and more dense the closer we got to the centre.
Arriving at our hotel in Shinjuku we were fascinated by our ultra tiny room and fancy toilet complete with several different including wash, dry and running water sound effects! Deciding that food, followed by a shower and sleep were our biggest priorities we headed down to the hotel cafe to grab a quick bite to eat before crashing out in our room. Waking to our alarm a couple of hours later we could've easily done with a several more hours, but dragged ourselves out of bed and got ready to head out.
We started by exploring the area around our hotel, beginning with the world's biggest train station, Shijuku, which services an estimated 3.5 million passengers each day. Shinjuku is divided into two distinct neighbourhoods, Nishi-Shinjuku where our hotel was, dominated by towering skyscrapers of steel and glass. The other part is the chaotic East side where you tend to spend most of your time walking around with your neck craning up and and around at all the madness. Spotting several Pachinko parlours, we decided to try our luck, walking out of there 10 minutes later slightly poorer and with our ears ringing from the sound of the electronic sound effects and the defeaning rattle of the tiny balls passing through the machines.
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