Monday, June 17, 2013

Day Zero + One: JAL and Shinagawa

Yo.

So the Houchens were nice enough to drive us to the airport. We arrived with two or three hours to kill before take off, so we checked in with Japanese Airlines (JAL) and headed through security. We had a pizza lunch and charged our phones before boarding the 777-246ER. We sat towards the back of the plane in row 49 (of 58 I think) on the right side. I sat in the middle and Kyle in the window seat; pulling rank on us. This was a really cool flight. All the flight attendants were gorgeous Japanese ladies who spoke to me in Japanese. The food was great as well. Tonkatsu (pork cutlet) in curry with rice, salad, some kind of potato salad, fruit, and haagen-dazs. It also landed an hour earlier than we expected, at 9:30ish instead of 10:30ish. Oh and right before we were taking off, as we taxied to the runway, a big grey US Airforce plane came in and at the angle we were at, it looked like it was going to land right on top of us. So that was neato. The plane had tons of ways to entertain. You could play games, watch movies, listen to music and even watch what was below the plane. THEY EVEN HAD KYARY. I flipped.

The top two photos show the entertainment system's main menu. The bottom left shows the "bird's eye" view from the plane and the bottom right shows the Japanese songs they were playing; Kyary and 9mm!

Top: First meal. Bottom: A mountain we flew over and its relative location.


So we finally landed at Tokyo Haneda International after a grueling nine hours. Really, it wasn't that bad, but of course the seats were cramped. We went through immigration and then customs pretty quickly and went on to the Keikyu Airport Line. This took us to Shinagawa Station, a place I'm quite familiar with and from there we went to find our hotel. It's right next to the hotel I stayed in two years ago, oddly enough. We got a little lost, because Kev left the map I printed out on the plane, but I knew basically where to go. We were just a little confused is all, because there is the Grand Prince New Takanawa and the Grand Prince Takanawa, the latter being our hotel. They're all connected, but you check in with a specific one. After dropping off our stuff, and checking out our room (which has three beds, instead of the one I was expecting) we back down to the station area and looked for food, but around this time (close to midnight) not many places were open. We settled on a ramen place that was actually open until 3:00am. After that, we headed back up to the hotel and called it a night after some more settling.

First meal in Japan: Chashumen


I pasted two pictures taken at different angles together to make this. Laziness at its finest.

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