Japan (Friday, Oct 21 2022)

Once the plane landed, we got off the plane in groups, the first group being those people heading for plane transfers, then local nationals, then everyone else. As far as I could tell most of the local nationals, especially those towards the back, waited for the last group and got off together anyway. It was weird and inefficient, as was the army of airport staff waiting outside to check the status of my pre-flight vaccination registration app (called MySOS, which I had done about four days prior), as the first one gave me a blue slip of paper signifying that my app showed a pass, and at least four subsequent groups of staff along the one single passage we could walk down also checked for the blue slip of paper as well as occasionally the app bar code itself too. There were also staff standing attentively at every turn in the passage as though they were afraid that people would not figure out how to turn a corner and would walk into a wall or something. And then we had to submit that blue form at the final border immigration counter again anyway. So inefficient.

After immigration was baggage pickup, which passed without issue (I was slightly worried my bag would get misrouted due to the 6 hour wait), and then customs, where I realized that JAL had not given me a customs form to fill in (in my experience, this is usually given out by the flight attendants just before landing). Whatever, there were customs forms right there next to the customs area anyway, so I filled one out and promptly got called over going through customs so an officer could look through my bag anyway. But I passed that without incident too. The customs officer chatted me up once I said I was here for the first time and asked if I knew about local Japanese customs (I said yes). He opened up the notebook I had brought along (to check for illicit stuff? one of the items on the checklist he showed me was unauthorized copies of things, but he didn’t look through electronics or anything like that even though I had a laptop and external hard drive and phone with me) and I showed him the vocab list I was building in that notebook, and he was impressed by that, and then if I knew any Japanese actors (I said no). I asked him to name one that he liked (so I could go look them up) and he couldn’t give me an answer either though!

Once I was past that checkpoint, I was finally fully in Japan. I went to the Terminal 2-3 train station area, where I traded in my JR Pass receipt for an actual pass, giving the counter clerk an activation date of Nov 05 for when I wanted the pass to start. He asked (in English) if I wanted to reserve any tickets too and I said no. He then pointed me to a machine next to the counter where I could buy a Suica pass card, basically a transit cash card, from, and I did so. Although even though that thing had English options, the machine menu selection process was awkward and I had to get a bit of help from an attendant in order to actually purchase it. I was also warned in advance about this from reading online accounts in the prior week that foreign credit cards didn’t work on this system because Japan is so behind the times in terms of payment, and this was true, as my Visa was outright rejected, so I paid with cash instead.

I then went back into the terminal itself to try to find somewhere that I could rent a SIM card from. I apparently had to book in advance to get some of the better deals (and I still might, later on in this trip), but I ended up going for a 90 days/10 GB prepaid SIM card from Softbank. This cost 6935 yen after taxes. Here’s a line of toy machines I then passed by on the way to the terminal. Las Vegas has its airport slot machines, whereas Narita has these, I guess.

After this, I planned out the route to the inn/hostel where I was going to be staying at for the first few days. The suggested app for this (and the one I used) was not Google Maps, although that does work as well, but a website called Hyperdia, which I turned into a handy home screen link on my phone. It gave me a route using the Keisei Skyliner from Narita Airport Terminal 2-3 to Nippori Station (express, one stop away), and then a transfer to the JR Yamamote line (inner loop) from there to get to the station I needed to get to, Takadanobaba. I went past the transit gate with my Suica card, then realized from a sign inside that I needed a secondary ticket to get onto the Skyliner train, so I talked to the station’s ticket attendant, who swiped my card on some machine he had, which let me out so I could buy it from yet another ticket counter. This ticket cost 2570 yen but gave me a reserved train seat on a specific train (#62, the next one coming along in 8 minutes), and I used my Visa card here just fine. I carded my way back past the toll gates without incident (or any extra fee) and headed to the train platform.

Here, I found out that I technically didn’t actually need a ticket, this Keisei Skyliner train shared a platform with a slower Keisei-Ueno Rapid-Limited Express train thing that did not require a reserved seating ticket (and would only have cost 1030 yen or so), but it would have turned an express 38 minute ride into one that was around an hour and 10 minutes, plus the seats were a nice bonus since I was lugging bags along, so there was that. The train station was quite crowded, with several dozen people waiting for the next rapid-limited train. I also found out later on that there was a way for tourists to combine a Skyliner ticket with a discounted 24-48-72 hour Tokyo Subway ticket by ordering in advance, which would have been nice too, but c’est la vie. Figuring out how to the train system is a major goal of this trip as well. (There was also a separate gate to a JR station at that Terminal 2-3 nexus area, which I will probably be using for my return trip on Nov 25.)

The Skyliner train ride was nice and comfortable. No one asked to see my ticket, although several ticket conductors walked by, and the express train blazed by several stations on its way to Nippori station. It was around 7pm by then and the skies were surprisingly already pitch black, so I couldn’t see much from the train window except when it passed by the area around a station, since Narita airport is located on the outskirts of the Greater Tokyo area. Nippori station was a big transfer hub, and the central area looked like this:

I had a little trouble going through the gate at first because it said I needed to purchase a JR ticket so I asked the attendant if the Suica pass was enough. He noted that I had just alighted from the Skyliner (which was about 10 feet away) and asked to see my pass, but I couldn’t find it in the mass of papers and receipts that I had by that point. He pressed some button and asked me to swipe my Suica card at the gate and let me through anyway. In hindsight, he might have been looking to see if I had purchased that extra Tokyo subway addon ticket, maybe, but I hadn’t. Oh well. Either way looking confused helped, I think (but cannot confirm) that I didn’t end up paying for this ride.

I went down to the Yamamote Line platforms (which were behind me and to the right from the point of view of that picture) and waited for my first JR train. This green loop train is one of the most important/crowded lines in Tokyo, if I am not mistaken, and at this time of night it was quite full of people commuting home from work or school.

At least I wasn’t on wherever this Tohoku Shinkansen line was:

Train announcements were made in both Japanese and English (and I had also seen some earlier signboards cycle through Korean as well) and included the name of the next train station, the transfers that could be made from there, and whether the train door would open on the left or right side. It strongly reminded me of my experiences on the Seoul transit system about eight years ago or so.

My stop was eight stops away, and I watched the people floating on and off before it was my turn to get off. Takadanobaba was a very busy station since it was in the heart of the college town/neighbourhood around Waseda University, and my phone was almost dead by this time, but I walked past some nice night city scenes before eventually managed to find the place I was going to be staying at for the next four nights.