Day 1
06 Aug 2014Posted with : akihabara, akihabara
We’re going to Japan!
It’s 3:00 am and our flight doesn’t depart for a few more hours, but we can’t relax. We’re off to Japan! It’s been a lot of hours of preparation, emails with the travel agency, etc. But the die is cast and all that’s left for us is to enjoy and enjoy.
In another article, I tell you how I usually pack my backpack for trips. I try to avoid checking bags, regardless of the airline I fly with (in this case, we’re flying with Air France and returning with KLM). You avoid unnecessary waits, your bags flying to a different hemisphere than yours (something similar happened this time) or even worse things (also happened here).
We take a taxi (one of the perks of splitting these expenses between 3) and we arrive at Barajas airport (I heard it’s not called that anymore… but :) ).
At the airport, we meet Beatriz, our travel agent, who by chance is flying to Tokyo with us.
The first flight to Paris flies by faster than a jet ;) (pun intended). The second 12-hour flight to Tokyo is a bit more tedious. The plane, a 777, has the so-called “personal entertainment system”. A TV to watch the series and movies offered by the airline. Among them, I choose Friends, the only available episode is the one with the cheesecake, but I’m happy with that :). At times, I’ll watch The Hobbit, Divergent, Captain America… The menu for lunch offers Oriental and Western options.
As soon as we land in Tokyo, the Japanese atmosphere is palpable. Planes decorated with pikachus line up at the airport.
Tokyo Airport
As soon as we arrive, we receive a message from Air France saying that our bags (we had checked in our travel companion’s bag) were on another plane, but not to worry. Yeah, right. None of us who left Madrid had our bags there and they didn’t arrive until 3:00 am that night. Oh well.
Our only responsibility here is to exchange our Japan Rail Pass reservations for the ticket itself. In addition, we approach the first ATM we see, which is from the ATM network, and withdraw money to start the day off right :). In another article, I also talk about our financial strategy.
Tokyo
We take a train that drops us off at Hamamatsucho station, from where we can walk to our hotel.
We check in without any problems and at the reception, they let us know that they have a couple of packages waiting for us. One of them is our brand new wifi router [TODO]. A quick shower and we’re out on the street without being able to wait a minute.
Akihabara
Our first destination is Tokyo’s famous Electric Town. Famous for its arcades, electronics stores, maid cafes, bars, restaurants, shopping centers, nightclubs, cosplay stores, anime, manga, and a long etcetera. You can spend a day here or a week or a whole month and still have hundreds of things to see.
Some of the places we visit: Taito, Club Sega, Super potato, Museo de anime (I don’t recommend it), Don Quijote..
Our first meal, as it couldn’t be otherwise: Ramen. We ordered it at a restaurant near the station, using one of those machines I mentioned here [TODO].
It’s hot, very, very hot. And after hours and hours of shopping, we just feel like going back to the hotel and sleeping as many hours as the jet lag requires.
You can see more photos [TODO]