Tokyo

Our return home included a purposefully planned twelve hour layover in Tokyo which included, among other challenges, another massive culture shock. The familiarity we had gained with the visual look of the Thai language, currency and customs went right out the door. Japanese, in all its calligraphic glory, was everywhere, and primarily without English subtitles.

Walking into the Narita airport we might as well been walking on another planet and we were instantly lost. We had trouble claiming our bags, we had trouble finding money, we had trouble finding our next flight check in, we had trouble finding directions, maps and travel info, and even had trouble finding someone that spoke English. After some effort, fueled by the determination to get into Tokyo, we had our information and made our plans. We stashed everything we didn’t want to carry in a locker and went to the Metro.

Surprisingly, we had little effort purchasing an express train and Metro pass for the Tokyo NEX Narita Express but getting on the correct train was another story. We showed the tickets, which were completely in Japanese, to several workers at the station, including the conductor of one of the trains. We were all pointed onto a train which ended up going entirely in the wrong direction. We discovered the error by following station signs with the map. Completely perplexed and hoping for some help, we made the bold move to exit the train at one of the stations. Not a soul that we could find knew any English. We made our way to the top level and eventually found a man in a ticket booth that said he ‘knew a little English’. Those were the last words he said in English. He looked at our tickets and started on a monologue in Japanese which included trying to get us to exit the toll area. We were worried that if we exited we may have to pay again to re-enter, so we took the tickets back, bowed a few times and headed back down to the platform. Another train came and left and we stood there bewildered. Finally another train came on an adjoining platform with only the letters NEX on the side. We thought that was our best shot. We ran as fast as we could back up the stairs and over to the next platform and just made it onto the train before the doors shut and away we went, although still not quite sure where we were headed. We tried to orient ourselves from the first couple of stops, and when we gained confidence we were headed in the right direction, out of exhaustion, we both fell fast asleep.

We woke up as the train arrived at the Tokyo station. We succeeded in getting on a subway to the Ueno station. We exited to begin yet another adventure of wrong directions and perplexing information. It was a challenge just to find our way out of the station. It was winter in Japan, so the businesses were closed up and the interiors were not visible from the sidewalk. Signs in front of shops had chalk headlines with what we assumed were daily specials. From our vantage point they could be selling anything from bird cages or plumbing supplies - we were hoping for lunch. Drivers used the left side of the street here, and all the sidewalks had a designated biking lane which we mistakenly used a few times.
Following a hunch, we headed toward a sign that would occasionally flash the word OPEN in English. Sure enough, it was a small restaurant. After being seated, the server handed us menus with Japanese AND English (were we that obvious?) and we reverted to the fool proof ‘point and smile’ system. After our tempura lunch we headed out for a famous temple area...

We stumbled upon an information store and met our first real English speaker that proved to be quite helpful. With her suggestions and maps in hand, we headed toward the points of interest. Walking proved to be a challenge due to the overabundance of rickshaw drivers. At every step drivers were offering us rides, for a fee of course. It became somewhat of a game to successfully avoid them. We found our own way to some renowned temple, famous for something that we never found out. We explored a few other areas and found a market where we bought a few souvenirs. We made our way back to the subway and then to one final stop at Asakusa. There we found two important and distinctive structures. The first we immediately dubbed “the golden turd”. We later found out our nickname was actually the unofficial name for the Asahi Beer Hall, which is one of the buildings of the Asahi Breweries headquartered on the east bank of the Sumida River. The other structure was the new and soon to be famous (and not yet open to the public) Sky Tree. This looming structure, opening in two more months, was billed at the tallest observation tower in the world. We were sorry we couldn’t enter, but it was nice to see the completed structure from below. It was nonetheless impressive from our lowly vantage point.

Our Tokyo tour was cut a little short from a twisted ankle (all healed, thank you) so we headed back to the airport where we checked in and had our final foreign meal: some veggie noodle soup.

Three sunsets, two sunrises, twelve time changes including crossing the International Date Line, and our trip from Thailand back to the USA had concluded. We were energized yet exhausted from the journey, but it was worth every moment.