Sunday, March 20th: Arrival in Tokyo
The flight from Seattle to Tokyo was overbooked, and United tried to resell out third seat. Erci was firm, but polite and it was restored. United was offering $600 and hotel to anyone willing to give up their seat.
Flying with a vacant seat between us was the best money we've spent so far: we both noticed that we were fresher and more alert after the 9 hour flight following a 90 minute flight than we were last night on the flight packed from Dulles to San Francisco. Favorite quote from a little girl sitting behind us and repeating a dozen times: "Are we on the ground yet?" to which her father would reply "No, that is a BIG bump."
Pick up of our pre-arranged PuPuRu mobile phone went flawlessly (number delete - rental period is over), we grabbed yen from both ATM and US Cash (rates much better at ATM) and just missed the 17:13 Narita Express to Shinjuku, so we grabbed some coffees at Starbucks and caught the 18:13 Narita Express to Shinjuku (with luggage, having no transfers is worth waiting and more money).
The Nishi Shinjuku Hotel is pleasant, but has astonishingly tiny rooms.
Flying with a vacant seat between us was the best money we've spent so far: we both noticed that we were fresher and more alert after the 9 hour flight following a 90 minute flight than we were last night on the flight packed from Dulles to San Francisco. Favorite quote from a little girl sitting behind us and repeating a dozen times: "Are we on the ground yet?" to which her father would reply "No, that is a BIG bump."
Pick up of our pre-arranged PuPuRu mobile phone went flawlessly (number delete - rental period is over), we grabbed yen from both ATM and US Cash (rates much better at ATM) and just missed the 17:13 Narita Express to Shinjuku, so we grabbed some coffees at Starbucks and caught the 18:13 Narita Express to Shinjuku (with luggage, having no transfers is worth waiting and more money).
| We were both very interested in the very useful whole-wall display of traffic and transit situation between Narita Airport and Tokyo, why doesn't Dulles have this sort of thing? It is a huge display with maps of the various ground transit options, with LED lights indicating status of traffic, exactly where the trains and busses are, etc. Very informative. |  |
 | The Narita Express is awesome. Clean, spacious, room for luggage, and easy to understand graphucal diagrams of the train's progress. |
The Nishi Shinjuku Hotel is pleasant, but has astonishingly tiny rooms.
