Day 1: 1 April 2009

LOCATION: Tokyo
MOOD: Accomplished
LISTENING TO: Do As Infinity - For The Future

GETTING THERE IS HALF THE...SOMETHING:

So there I was. 11:00PM local time (1:00AM according to the clock that I had woken up to that morning), middle of the night, raining, carrying three bags, but no umbrella.

The day (and it literally was a day, given that I woke up at 2AM Melbourne time and only went to sleep at around 1AM Tokyo time (3AM Melbourne time)) was full of amusing anecdotes, and I'm not quite sure where to start in explaining how I ended up in that situation. The beginning, probably.

DON'T FORGET TO COME BACK:

The first hiccup of the day was at Melbourne airport. I arrived at around quarter to 5 in the morning, pumped and ready to go; several years of dreaming (and several weeks of actual planning) were about to come to fruition. I boldly stepped up to the Jetstar check-in counter and was promptly informed that I wasn't able to enter the country. Well, at least not until I booked a return ticket.

I'm not sure why it never occurred to me when I was planning the trip. I managed to get a sale flight to Japan for under $400 incl tax, and I was planning to leave my travel plans open ended (with the obvious proviso that I leave before my 90 day entry visa expired). I even told my plans to a number of seasoned travellers and no eyebrows were raised. Thinking about it logically, knowing how much of a douche the Japanese authorities can be (see below) and how paranoid everybody is about illegal immigrants, it seems pretty obvious that a return ticket would be a requirement for entry into the country. It wouldn't have hurt Jetstar to tell me when I ordered my one-way ticket though.

Anyway, long story short I booked my return ticket on the spot and I'll now be returning on the morning of the 21^st of June. The rest of that day I'll be sleeping, but on the 22^nd I'll be expecting plenty of welcome back calls ;-).

THE VERDICT ON BUDGET AIRLINES:

Now that I've actually experienced an overseas budget airline flight, my final verdict is: Budget airlines are not for fat people. The seats are tiny (I thought I was going to get DVT, and I'm 23 and skinny), and they charge you for food.

...at least that was the first thought that popped into my mind when I boarded my first flight. My journey had two legs, the first being a domestic flight to the Gold Coast and the second being the actual international flight to Tokyo. In between the two was the delightful experience of baggage collection and re-check in. I think I spent about two hours in total getting from the disembarkation area into the boarding lounge. The queue for check-in was horrendous, not helped at all by the fact that there was about a hundred Japanese high schoolers returning from a school trip. (As a side note, what kind of school takes their students overseas for a trip? I went to a pretty exclusive private school and the furthest away from Melbourne I got was Philip Island.) In fact, there were so many Japanese people in Gold Coast airport that it felt like I was in Japan already. The signs and the Jetstar brochures were in English and Japanese.

Apart from the horrendous connection, the only other thing that irked me was having to pay $4.50 for a Powerade in the boarding lounge. Apparently there's some rule against taking more than 100ml of liquids on board planes, even though they sell full size liquid containers right on the other side of the security check. Coincidence? I think not.

The time spent waiting in the boarding lounge gave me time to strike up a conversation with a girl who looked as bedraggled as I was. We spent most of the waiting time chatting and arranged to sit next to each other on the plane, although during the flight she mostly slept and I mostly played FFIII on my DS. I lost touch of her at immigration in Tokyo airport, but it seemed like she was in a rush and I had other things to do so I couldn't really complain.

The flights themselves weren't too bad as far as air travel goes. The domestic flight was pretty crampt, and there were so many babies on board that it felt like a nursery. In particular there was one toddler who was bawling for pretty much half an hour at the top of her lungs. I'm not sure what finally calmed her down, but all that I can say is that while it was going on I kept on thinking about that MASH episode: “It was a baby!”

The international flight was a little better. Leather seats (that were slightly larger than the domestic ones and reclinable), fairly regular food service (if you were willing to pay for it), crisp, clean new plane. Not too shabby. Really, you get what you pay for with these services. Bottom line, if you can afford to fly a standard airline you probably should, but if you can't then budget airlines are a decent way to travel.

POWER CORRUPTS, ABSOLUTE POWER CORRUPTS ABSOLUTELY:

My experience at Narita airport was somewhat less pleasant. I arrived at around 8PM, and for some reason pretty much everything was closed, so I immediately collected my bags and headed for the annexed train station to catch the train to my hostel. I had changed money before coming to Japan, and so I only had 10,000 yen notes (the equivalent of a $100 note in Australian currency). I then tried to queue up to buy a ticket at the counter, seeing as the actual fare was only 1,060 yen and I wasn't about to risk having the machine eat my 10,000 yen note.

The girl at the first counter told me to go to the second counter, and then the girl at the second counter pointed me back to the first girl. At that point I gave up and tried to ask one of the security guards where I could change the remaining Australian dollars I had on me in an effort to get some small change. After seeing that the bank right in front of us was closed, he more or less said that he was a security guard and that I should check somewhere else. But not before I showed him my passport. Seriously, I had just gotten through immigration, was carrying three bags and had showed him Australian dollars. How many illegal immigrants fit that profile?

Basically after milling around for a while and trying to figure out whether the machine would give me enough change, I decided to go and hunt for a money changer. They were pretty much all closed except for one, and thankfully I managed to get enough small change to pay for my ticket.

When I finally arrived at my subway station (after a couple of wrong connections), I stepped outside to find that it was dark and raining. My hostel was apparently quite close to the station, so I considered walking for a bit before I decided that it would be better to get a taxi.

The taxi driver was a really nice guy. The place was only four or five blocks away from the station, but I'm guessing that he took pity on me in my drenched, wearied state. Even after the address that I gave him saw us arrive at a love hotel (cheap motels where couples go to hook up), he stuck it out with me and made sure that I got to the proper destination (it was around the corner). He even accepted 500 yen instead of the 1000 yen fare when I showed him that all I had was a 500 yen coin and a 10,000 yen note.

Bottom line, Japan has great people. The average Japanese person is friendly, sociable and accomodating. Japanese authority figures however, tend to be abrupt, dismissive and condescending. I'm not sure whether it's something about the Japanese personality that swells the head when placed in a position of power, or whether it's the existing power structures that encourage such behaviour. Whatever the case, it's a shame. Revolutionaries who think that 'the man' is bad in the West have clearly never been to the East.

HOSTEL L'INTERNATIONALE:

Luckily I had selected a hostel with a 24 hour reception. They had held my reservation despite my arriving an hour after my stated arrival time. The place is a clean, unassuming joint with 8-bed dorms for around 3000 yen a night ($A45). Initially I was apprehensive about the whole dorm room thing, but it turns out that I had nothing to be worried about. My dorm has a collection of colourful characters from the Scottish couple doing a year-long, world-wide trip to the affable Swede who's been in and out of Japan for the past couple of years and boasts some serious body ink.

While privacy is of course a bit of an issue and sleeping can be difficult with people coming back at all times of the night, this is compensated by the companionship and the extra information that you get from your roommates. Plus, it's cheap:

Room per night: 2880 yen

Security deposit: 1000 yen

Breakfast: 350 yen

Padlock hire (for the lockers in the room): 150 yen

Hearing Japanese spoken with German, French and Italian accents: Priceless.

I ended up getting to sleep around 1:00AM local time, meaning that I had been up for 25 hours (not counting the mini-sleeps I had in spurts during the flight). I then awoke with the Tokyo sunrise (around 6:00AM) and was off again. Time (and especially time in Tokyo) waits for no one.

THE DAY IN PICTURES:

Shortly After Leaving Gold Coast

Shortly Before Arriving in Tokyo

....well, were you really expecting more photos given that I spent the entire day on the plane?