Three tickets for three oclock. San! San! San!
Trip Start
Dec 22, 2008
1
16
17
Trip End
Jan 06, 2009
Tokyo, Kanto, Japan
Monday, January 5, 2009
So the alarm went off at 7am. I raised my head and said 'So, are we getting up to go?'. David unconciously said 'I think not', Nat sort of mumbled something and I promptly went back to sleep... choking only a few times on the amazing amount of phlegm I'd developed.
Got out of bed at about 930am, and quickly got in the shower and suddenly Makoto had arrived for us to hand over the keys. Fortunately we were pretty well ready to go, but I was a bit confused about why he'd arrived at 11am instead of 1pm... although I was quite confused with the 25:00 hours at the Tokyo Sky View in Roppongi Hills so it must be something to do with the 60 second minute and weird Japanese time.
We were able to get our reserved seat tickets from the Nishi-Ogikubo station, our station, so did that before heading to Shinjuku station on the train. I've SO loved the Japan Rail Pass, and highly recommend it. We've been able to get pretty much anywhere by using the JR lines, and then we bought a Suica card to be able to use the few subway stations we needed. Brilliant transit system that I will miss very much when back in Adelaide and I next miss a train and have to wait 40 minutes for the next one! I think the longest we waited for a train was 7 minutes, and the shinkansen was 29 minutes.
Got to Shinkansen, found the right platform and left David with all our baggage because there was a little boutique designer shop in the station somewhere that Nat and I had found and drooled over bags in and decided we had money left so we just HAD to go back. We headed out through the gates, around a corner, looking for familiar places (bit hard to do when it's all similar bento stalls, bakeries, vending machines, lockers, white walls and pillars) and we found the 'Food Pocket' and then we saw pink - yay! It was Betsey Johnson! Nat bought a gorgeous new purse, I got a fabulous handbag and handluggage sized bag... and the best thing was there was a New Year Sale on so one of my bags was half price. OK, I still spent $1000 AU in there but they are fabulous bags!
We were going to try the Corn drink can from a vending machine, but I saw a kid with one and she was CHEWING it so thought that wouldn't be a good idea. I had about 300ish Yen left so got one last bottle of Pocari Sweat and we headed back to the Narita Express platform to wait for our train... we still had about 20 minutes to spare so excellent timing. I did a furiously fast repack and shuffle of things so I could use my new carry-on luggage, people did stare.
Train ride to the Narita Airport was a bit sad, but we got to the airport, through customs and immigration and duty free shops and then a relax before our flight out at 805pm.
Goodbye Ogikubo, Harajuku, Shinjuku, Akihabara.... goodbye Tokyo, Kyoto, Hiroshima. Goodbye vending machines, karaoke, ramen, bento, pachinko and vitamin drinks. Goodbye UFO catchers, hello kitty and mad television game shows.
Goodbye Japan.
