The flight to Japan

Day 1 Thursday April 5th.

It all started with the walk to the bus station from Brad and Nada's house, who I am grateful to for letting me stay the night making the trip to bus station a lot easier. I was up at 4 and at the station by 4:20am. The only eventful scene worth mentioning there was that I was inches away from getting crapped on by a pigeon which would not have gone over to well with me. The bus ride was easy enough as I did sleep most of the way to Heathrow.

From here I flew to Copenhagen in Denmark where I had a 2 hour layover (well 1 hour as the plane from London was late) before getting ready for the 10 hour flight to Narita just outside Tokyo Japan. The flight went by really fast with the TV screens in each headrest and the choice of about 15 movies. I think I managed to get through 4 of them before reading a few chapters of a book and getting some sleep.

Day 2 Friday April 6th.

Arriving in Japan I cleared customs without any major incidents other than the extremely large number of questions as I always get asked in every airport. I must just have "that look" about me.

It was about an hour and half bus ride to Kichijoji station where I met up with Ryan in the matter of seconds. As you leave the airport there were rows of cherry blossom trees on either side of the road which was remarkable. They are only in bloom for 2 or 3 weeks which makes this one of the best times to visit Japan. It is only a short walk to his place from the station down some narrow streets passed small restaurants, grocery stores, and arcades. After a quick stop at his place we made our way down to a park close by to see the cherry blossoms and people just lounging around in the sun. It was such a laid back atmosphere and it was easy to see why everyone laying on mats drinking a few beers.





Before checking out a few local temples and stores in Kichijoji we had to have a quick bite to eat. We ate is this small local sushi bar with a conveyer belt of freshly prepared sushi going around in circles. It was the best sushi I have ever had. No wonder we went back there 3 times throughout the trip.

Jumping on the train we made our way down to Shinjuku to go to the top of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government Building and took the elevator up the 243m to the top floor for a great view of Tokyo. This building used to be the tallest in Tokyo but lost its title in 2006 to the Midtown Tower.

Jumping on the train again we went down to Shibuya to see the famous intersection that has a never ending huge crowd of people crossing. You may recall the famous scene in the movie Fast and Furious 3: Tokyo Drift where the crowd has to disperse as fast as possible as the cars come racing through. Well we went to the 2nd floor of Starbucks to get a great overhead view of the masses of people before we made our way back to Ryan’s to get ready to head to a Salsa bar in Roppongi and dance the night away with some of his friends from work before catching the last train back to Kichijoji for some sleep. Not to bad for the first day in Japan.





More to come!!!