Day 1: Tokyo

View from my room at the Sumisho Hotel in Tokyo

My second time to Japan! It had been too long since my first time, back in 2000. But in between those years, I have visited many other wonderful places. But now it was back to Japan, to see the country I have fallen in love with, after fullfilling my childhood dream 7 years ago.

On thursday the 17th of may, I took off from Schiphol Airport at 8:15 pm local time on my flight to Japan's capital: Tokyo. It was a pleasant flight with JAL, Japanese Airlines, and I spent most of the flight listening to my mp3 player, watching some tv, reading a book I had bought on the airport, studying my japan travel guide for what to see and do and talking to one of the people from the tour group I was travelling with.

I landed safely on Narita airport around 2:30 pm local on the 18th of may and I had made it to Japan for a second time ! I went through customs and had my suitcase checked. My first time ever when I landed somewhere and got inspected by customs. I met up with the other members of the tour group and we found our tourguide for the coming 3 weeks, who was waiting outside the arrival hall.

We boarded the train to Tokyo, which took us about 2 hours and then took the subway to our hotel: Sumisho Hotel in the Chuo-ku area. The last bit from the subway to the hotel, we had to walk. We arrived at the hotel around 6 pm and the guide invited us for dinner at 7:30 pm.

The guide gave me my room key and I went to my room to freshen up and drop my suitcase in the room. I emptied the back of excess weight, grabbed my camera and headed out to have a look around the area surrounding our hotel. Not much to see, apart from office buildings, roads and the railway going over.

We had our first dinner together in Japan across the street from our hotel at a place called Jonathans. During the dinner, the guide told us the basic itinerary of the coming 3 weeks and the options of what to do and see in Tokyo. After dinner, I went to bed, tired from the long flight and as usual not able to sleep on the plane.