So we jumped off the plane at NRT with a dream and a rail pass….
Leaving home at about 4.30am, a couple of flights and 15 hours later we landed at Narita Airport. We had made it, Japan, we were in you. Now a day of flying will usually take it out of you, especially flying during the day. This flight felt like the longest I had ever endured, Couldn’t sleep, daylight most of the time and Jetstar. Thankfully the flight was less than half full! We got a row each and relaxed.
We got through immigration grabbed out bags, exchanged the rail pass vouchers and jumped onto the Narita express. We got into Shinjuku at about 9.30pm and all of a sudden we where awake! The sensory overload that is stepping out of Shinjuku station was like an injection of energy that eradicated any sense of jetlag. We walked down to the hotel, which we had thankfully gotten near the station! A quick check in and up to the room which was your stereotypical Japanese business hotel room, complete with future toilet! We dropped our things and went to explore the streets of Shinjuku.
Watching Sam having his first experience of Japan was awesome! Wide eyed and jaw dropped as your retinas are assaulted with the over commercialization of the city. It’s like a grown up kids candy store. One of the things I love most about Japan is their trading hours! Shops don’t tend to open until 10 or 11am most days, however everything is open late, every day! You can still wander around shopping, eating, being entertained until 10 or 11pm, some even later! So when went for a walk around Shinjuku on a Sunday night after 10pm, it was still bustling. We wandered the neon flooded streets weaving in and out of stores, marveling at the gadgets and technology on sale of things we may see in a year or so.
One store we stopped at was Don Quixote a 8 story behemoth in the middle of Shinjuku. This flagship store is open 24/7 for your convenience and a great place to stop and see an array of products from clothing, to electronics to groceries and high end goods. Don’s has it all. Resisting the urge to buy everything in sight, this was challenged when we hit an aisle of adult onsies. Yes you read that correctly, Adult. Onsies. My brain went into a すばらしいかわいい (Which means Super cute in Japanese!) meltdown. I could have gone broke buying up Mickey and Monsters Inc onsies for my comfort. However I resisted, for that night, and walked away knowing we would be back.
You would be surprise how a few hours could fly by so easily! However when we realized it was 1.30am we thought it best to head back to the lovely Hotel Sunroute and call it a morning.
As we got back to the room, with a few obligatory vending machine beverages (passing short of 100 machines on the walk back) we passed out on the bed knowing that, much like the land, the sun would soon be rising on another day.