February, Friday 11, 2011
The flight to Narita was pretty good. There was no turbulence, and Kevin and I had the four middle seats to ourselves. But that didn't help the last 2 hours from going ridiculously slow.
The flight to Narita was pretty good. There was no turbulence, and Kevin and I had the four middle seats to ourselves. But that didn't help the last 2 hours from going ridiculously slow.
Kevin and I temporarily lost each other about 3 times between leaving the plane and clearing customs. Considering we had no way of contacting each other, it was a bit worrying; that and the fact that to get from the plane to the baggage collection area requires you to catch a shuttle across the tarmac.
Kevin was changing money and I was minding the bags outside the arrivals area, when a very polite JSS officer asked me to show my passport. Not even out of the airport and I have already been subject to a random police search, I am on a roll! I had my passport in my pocket when the officer asked for it, and when I immediately presented it to him he was absolutely astonished! His reaction was hilarious, "wooooah so fast!"
Getting to our hotel turned out to be ridiculously easy, after a few minutes of standing around going "uhh where now?" we found the exit to the railway. We bought a Suica Card (similar to a GO card for those who don't know) and wandered off in search of a train going to Narita Station. As luck would have it there was one ten minutes later. As we got on the train we realized we didn’t actually know where Narita Station was. And neither of us could read the train line map from where we were standing. We guessed that it was the next stop and because of my ridiculously heavy bag/s very nearly didn’t make it off the train in time. As we stepped off the train it started to snow. A friendly old man saw my reaction (doing a happy dance) and laughed and asked us where we were from. He also told us how to leave the station, which was nice.
Getting to our hotel turned out to be ridiculously easy, after a few minutes of standing around going "uhh where now?" we found the exit to the railway. We bought a Suica Card (similar to a GO card for those who don't know) and wandered off in search of a train going to Narita Station. As luck would have it there was one ten minutes later. As we got on the train we realized we didn’t actually know where Narita Station was. And neither of us could read the train line map from where we were standing. We guessed that it was the next stop and because of my ridiculously heavy bag/s very nearly didn’t make it off the train in time. As we stepped off the train it started to snow. A friendly old man saw my reaction (doing a happy dance) and laughed and asked us where we were from. He also told us how to leave the station, which was nice.
Once we left the station, we spent about ten minutes trying to figure out how to get to the hotel. I knew it was supposed to be about 200m from the station, only neither of us could see it. We stood staring at a map for about 5 minutes debating whether to get a taxi or walk. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a building that said Hotel on it, and when I looked at it from the other side of the road, it turned out to be the Mercure. It was literally around the corner from where we were standing, we just didn’t think to look up. By this time the temperature had dropped to 1 C. And it was cold!
When we checked in, we got a free room upgrade. Awesome! The room was nice; we were on the 4th floor of the annex side of the hotel. To get to our room we had to take the elevator to the 3rd floor, walk about 100m down the hall and take another elevator to the 4th floor. It seemed confusing at first but it is actually pretty straight forward.
After we checked how to get to Haneda airport for our flight the next day we decided to go and get something eat. We had takoyaki at a tiny little shop near the station. Quite possibly the best takoyaki I have ever had, and apparently the stuff in Osaka is even better. It is so cheap compared to Australia too. We wandered down the street a bit, in search of smokes for Kevin, but ended up by cans of hot coffee from a vending machine, and trying not to freeze.
Narita is an amazing little town; the streets near the train station are small and cluttered with restaurants, most of them selling meals for around 500円. We didn’t have time to explore but I would love to come back to Narita and see more of the town, and see the shrines, and more of the shops. As a hotel the Narita Mercure is a perfect place to stay. Literally around the corner from the station, and close to as much food as you could possibly want, I would recommend it to anyone who needs to stay near Narita airport, or just wants to visit Narita.
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