Japan

Found a great deal online for tickets to Japan, so I embarked in this last-minute adventure, first time in Asia!

Narita airport via Brunei

The trip from Australia to Japan, with Royal Brunei, includes a 7Hr layover in Brunei airport, I was thinking on using a bit of time to explore the city but decided to stay in the airport and write/read/watch something instead, as it needed a bit of visa/paperwork. It turned out it was a good idea as weather that day was over 30 degrees, high humidity and roaming/phone/data/navigation would not have worked anyway.

Brunei airport is small, it has almost no options for eating and most of the stores were closed when we arrived, 5PM, maybe because is a Muslim country? Beyond that the main issue was WiFi access time limited to 3 Hours max in theory, however it disconnected approx. 1 hour after signing up. So ended up trying to cool down few hours while waiting for the next flight instead.

Regarding religion, from time to time I could hear different prayer/songs from the airport speakers. That was new, also in the flight the movies or content was censured, they play a Muslim prayer before takeout and also a random clip about religion and art while flying or watching other contents. It’s awkward that movie contents are edited/censured: on one hand any random action/Hollywood movie full of swearing, blood and violence is OK, uncensured, but if any scene mentions God or maybe other topics that part is muted/cut – weird.

Beyond that the flight to Brunei was good, good aircraft, soft ride with plenty of space.

Narita Airport – capsule hotel

Flights from Brunei to Japan land at Narita Airport, which is about 1Hr from central Tokyo, so the plan was to take a train to downtown. The flight was supposed to arrive 7am so I assumed I could take a quick nap in a capsule hotel in the airport then head to the city. Sleeping at a capsule hotel was something I was really into, as it’s futuristic (see link/photos below)

https://ninehours.co.jp/en/stay-services

However, the flight from Brunei to Narita was crowded and then at Narita airport border we had a huge line for all passports and another quick line for Japanese passports. I think we lost more than 1 hour in that line. I assumed they would have a more automated system but it was only one huge line served by 4-6 people.

After crossing the border I purchased a local SIM card and local Welcome/SUICA travel/payments card, that card is basically a local debit card that works fine, foreign cards may not work everywhere. The SIM card on the other hand is only data, no calls!

When activating the SIM card I noticed the connection dropped every now and then, had to restart couple times, change settings, panicked and finally opted to get a roaming package for the AU number… until then I had no access to internet, as even local WiFi at the airport asked to register and confirm by email – which I am not sure how would work without internet access?

After that I tried to find the capsule hotel, it was 9AM already. It turned out the hotel was located at a different terminal, so I needed to take the local airport shuttle!

I think I got to the capsule hotel by 10AM as I stopped to get some snacks/water from a local shop. By the time I booked in I just wanted a shower and a bit of rest, before heading to the city.

I realized I booked the whole day, would have saved a bit of money booking shower/rest option, but at least I could rest a bit before heading to the city, I was so tired, we had a baby crying all night in the flight from Brunei. A great thing is that Japanese are really accommodating: the lady at the reception allowed me to stay couple hours even while in paper checkin was meant to be later (3pm).

After a quick shower and rest I took the Narita Express train to the city. To simplify things, I booked a place close to a train station (Shinagawa) as that connects with most lines, including Narita Express, Bullet Train and local lines, there are cheaper options elsewhere, but I would not recommend moving with large baggage in between train stations, the less transfer and walk the better.

Another thing that I’m glad I did was to bring a small suitcase, moving around with large baggage is painful and often requires paying extra because everything is small or not designed for large bags, in fact moving with large baggage means to buy reserved tickets, which are more expensive, in some train lines.

On the bright side, I went to the hotel to drop the bags, time was about 1PM already, (28 Hr. approx. without sleeping), and the reception lady was again super accommodating, she said the room was ready and I was allowed to check-in early without extra cost! First nap of the day and ready to explore the city.

Tokyo

I explored couple local areas that are popular to visit, everywhere is crowded, restaurants and big stores are open until late night. It seems the big metropolis never sleeps!

The good thing is that the transportation system works very well, almost always on time, can be navigated without understand Japanese as main station names and instructions are also in English and sometimes in Chinese as well.

One of the moments I remember from Tokyo was while connecting to join a Mario Kart or street karting.

I stopped at Sengakuji, walked a bit and saw a temple, there are so many around that did not worry much about visiting each and every single one of them, but while standing next to Sengakuji Temple I felt a quiet or serene feeling I had not experienced before, it was not the usual peace one could experience but something more like quiet, serene or contemplative stillness.

After that moment of zen we headed to Shibuya for street karting, it was so fun! Had to pay extra for the costume and bring an IDP / International Driver Permit, but the experience of driving around Tokyo is amazing and fun! – only quick note is to use sunglasses/driving glasses to cover your eyes as they drive fast and the eyes get soon irritated with smog/pollution/dust.

Kyoto

The next stop was Kyoto for the weekend, that involved another unique Japan experience: the bullet train or Shinkansen, it’s more expensive that a cheap flight, but the convenience is taking it in the same train station next to the hotel, any time, compared with traveling hours early to the airport, waiting for flight and so on.

The train feels normal until leaving the station, once it reaches certain speed the train activates a magnetic system, from then on it’s basically a floating vehicle! It’s very smooth, it even has free internet (that cuts now and then, but at that speed what can we expect). The video below is from the train passing by mount Fuji.

Only comment I could make about Kyoto is: Kyoto is a tourist trap!

From what one reads it’s supposed to be more traditional, nice temples, geishas and everything, however all tourists, local or foreigners try to go to the same places, take the exact same photo, dress up on kimono, umbrella etc. It’s hard to enjoy the places because of that, I would also say that the traditional is just hype, is just a big touristic attraction.

On the other hand, I got nice presents from there, so can’t complain.

Museums

As always while traveling, I visited couple museums in between touristic attractions. In couple cases you can’t take photos inside the museums, except allowed areas, that to allow for a smooth experience, so I do not have many photos to remember.

Also, due to language barrier I think I missed a lot of the museum experience, from the parts that were only in Japanese, but what I could appreciate in the locals was a deep love for reading: Kyoto International Manga Museum was a simple expo of different things, not really a big thing, but everyone inside there was reading in silence!

Samurai museum was more for foreigners, it was fun but also nice to learn few things from history and culture, for instance: Tempura (which is popular Japanese type of fried food) was invented by Portuguese monks. Also, it was interesting that Samurai used different names, but the first name was never used or revealed, to protect them from evil.

Ghibli Museum was the final and maybe more important place I wanted to visit, to get tickets involves a stressing process where tickets are released once a month 10am for upcoming month, then with luck one is assigned a queue number and has few minutes to complete the purchase. I used two laptops and a mobile phone to get a decent number in the queue, and finally I got a ticket, on the third attempt!

To get there was also a stressing adventure, as it involves taking the normal train, but google maps is wrong with the stops, so I stopped a bit before, then I had to take a local bus, and that’s where it gets difficult as there is no English anywhere, but I found a small note in the bus stop and basically all buses number 2-6 stop by the Ghibli Museum, so I got there on time! I assumed that being on time was important but when arrived it was a big queue again, but minor thing by then.

The museum itself is beautiful, simple but beautiful, and again no photos allowed inside. However an area that I liked was a desk with many drawings and notes, also many foreign books, classic literature that I guess inspired their stories.

Final Notes

Japan is beautiful, people is friendly and accommodating. Moving around is easy, food also was great, yet I missed some basic things like milk, yogurt (nowhere to find basic yogurt, forget about greek), etc. Overall, it was an amazing and inspiring experience.