Now it is my journey to land of rising Sun, after my last visit to probably land of last Sun!.
I had an official trip to Tokyo last week. As this place is too alienic, I carried each every detail like route maps, station maps, train timings. I had good flight with Cathay pacific The itinerary looked like this Bangalore [2:40 am] ----> Hong Kong [10:50am] 5:20 min of flight and negative time diff of 2.5hrs -- Dragon Air .
Hong Kong[15:00] -----> Tokyo/Narita[07:45] 3:45 min of flight and negative time diff of 1 hr -- Cathay PacificI hadn’t heard about Dragon Air before. It is limited flight operated from Hong Kong, currently in the verge of getting merged with Cathay Pacific. In my limited travel, I felt it to be much better than the Disciplined BA, racist Lufthansa or any other. I usually prefer the window seat, and somehow i manage to get one. The fun was during landing at Hong Kong airport. I could watch landing from the window and could see the plane descending sharply over the South China Sea, as though it would land over sea but all of sudden lands over run way though. Hmmm...HongKong airport runway starts from the sea shore. Hong Kong airport is nicely maintained, it is one among the best airports I have seen. Heathrow - London, Chicago, Denver Airport are others in my list. Though it's traffic density is much less than others. It was around mid-noon, when my issues with food started popping up. At restaurants you can not find food served without meat. The places around restaurant have pungent smell. I managed to convince a lady in one of the restaurants to have only vegetables not meat in the burger. Some pics from Hong Kong.
Next it was Cathay Pacific which carried me to Tokyo. It was around 7:45pm when I landed. It was peak time of arrival flights from all parts of the world, hence immigration was packed up. It took half an hour to clear immigration and get the check-in bags back. Next half an hour was at forex. You get close to 2Yen for 1Rupee. But you have to pay 10$ for a proper meal. I could not digest this fact that people here hang around with large numbers. Japan is under recession and inflation for more than 25 years as of now. There are n number of trains plying from and to Narita. I took Narita Express to Tokyo. It was around 10:45pm when I reached Tokyo. Tokyo station is one of the most complicated station you may ever see. I got down at level -3 at Tokyo station which is Sobuline to Tokyo. I had map of Tokyo station, but it is confusing even with maps. I had to take help from people around. People in Japan are helpful to the core. They make sure your problem is solved. I had to go to Hamamatsucho Station, trains in tokyo available at Yamanote line 4. I reached Hamamatsucho station at 11:15pm. It's late night and you hardly find people around may be it was Sunday night. Even if you find one it is very difficult to find people who speak in English. When you ask something in English, they will try to reply in English but most of the words will be Japanese. It was too cold and I did shiver literally at 5^C. I dragged my baggage all the way to the hotel using maps I carried. The hotel was really cool.
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Next Day, a colleague from Tokyo office joined me at hotel sharp at 8.30am as informed. People do adhere to time. The awkward part to me, I had to wear business suit. Everyone in Japan prefers to be in business suits always. I had never tried a business suit in my life. At Tokyo office, people hardly speak english. First day most the translations were done by my colleague. It is so wonderful that they have built a developed Tokyo without much help from outside world. I can't even imagine this to happen in India. We are a country with 28 different countries!!!! dominated and ruined by corrupt and selfish :(. Japan too is thickly populated. People in Japan are very disciplined. I could remember of my days in catholic school I studied, where we were supposed to move in lines. People queue up, everywhere, while boarding a train, or to restrooms. 9am is the peak hour, People flock in and out of railway station and everyone seems to be in a hurry. It is like herd of horses marching with horseshoe!
Next Good thing I have to talk about is the public transport. Tokyo is strongly interconnected with trains. With different lines of trains running. Each line is given a color coding. Sometimes it is confusing too as it is very complicated. If there is a cross over of tracks/lines at a point, same stations is named differently. There can be multiple ways you can travel, it can either be flyway trains or subway trains. I have not seen any train moving empty, at peak hours there are trains every 2minutes. I used to take the flyway trains. One day the flyway train was blocked due to a suicide over the track, I had to take subway train. Suicide rate in Japan is very high. I could hardly find one with a smile in trains I used to travel. There are Buses too, I never had an opportunity to try out.
Food...yeah. It's meat, meat and meat. There are huge number of restaurants around. I could find couple of Indian Restaurants along the way I used to travel. It is easier to find Vegeatarian food in Indian Restaurants. At McDonalds, I had asked them to prepare a Burger without meat, somehow it was agreed and I was a regular visitor with a special recipe. I had carried ready-made food items by MTR, which came handy though. Hmmm.... somehow food was managed.
Most of my time was spent at office and I wasn't left with enough time to sneak around. My hotel was close to Tokyo towers. Here is the Tokyo Tower.
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My Departure was planned on Saturday. I had almost half a day to sneak around. Here is the output. It is spring in Tokyo, and it is cherry blossom everywhere. Beautifully decorated. Some pictures of high rise buildings, Tokyo WTC, Hamatsucho Station. First I visited Takeshiba Pier, where I got first sight of vast Pacific Ocean. Next I had plans to go HamaRikyu park, it wasn't opened for the day when i reached.
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Below you find the Sky-scrapers on the shore of Pacific Ocean and the TakeShiba Pier.
Hamarikyu Park surroundings.
Tokyo is very well planned. Next photos is of World Trade Center in Tokyo.
This is the Green Line. Train painted with green color. Next is Platform for for Narita Express at Ground Level -3.
I reached Narita Airport by train by 2pm for 5pm flight. Due to some baggage issue the flight was delayed by an hour and 15 minutes. This caused short transit time at Hong Kong. I had only 20 minutes at Hong Kong Airport, though the airliner guided me for quick transit.And the flight which carried me.
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Tokyo [6:20pm] ---> Hong Kong [10pm] ---- 3hr 40 mins of flight positive time diff 1 hr -- Cathay Pacific.
Hong Kong [10.20 pm] ---> Bangalore [1.30pm] ---- 5hr 10 mins of flight positive time diff 2.5 hr -- Dragon Air.
All in all a new, different, experience
accomplished
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talksoflife
Comments
Chicago Airport, Yay!
My God! You had to haul your luggage all around. Wow, arent there any cabs there?
I could hardly find one with a smile in trains I used to travel. There is probably a big reason for high suicide rate there.
There are cabs, few reasons for not having cab, first it is difficult to communicate, second public transport is much convenient, third cabs are very expensive and last I had very less baggage!
Yeah..Tokyo is stressful city.