Saturday, December 23, 2017

Japan Trip Day 1: Tokyo

I flew to Tokyo by ANA and it was my first time flying ANA. I remembered booking 2 aisle seats for my sister and myself so I did not know how I ended up getting a window seat. I will not want a window seat anymore as I hate holding my bladder. I could not go to toilet as frequent as I liked as I did not want to disturb the person next to me. However due to the plane configuration, my window seat the back of the airplane was not too bad. I should not be complaining as I had an empty space next to me about half seat width. It was my first time flying with Boeing Dreamliner so I am quite impressed that it does not have the traditional window cover that we lift up or down. The window control is electric and it makes the windows shade darker or lighter to block the light. Cool!!

Service was great as expected from Japanese hospitality. With a flight from 630am until 4pm, I was expecting a breakfast and lunch. It was disappointing that meal was served about 1 hour of flight and then only a snack before landing. Bleah.. The Japanese side dishes for the meal was nice but the serving for the main dish was too little. In flight entertainment was very limited and underwhelming. I ended up watching Tangled (not complaining since it is one of Disney's princesses movies that I have not watched) and Big Bang Theory. I could not really sleep because I kept thinking of holding my bladder.

Upon arrival, we had to take bus from the plane to airport terminal. The winter breeze was like standing at the frozen section in a supermarket. It was for a shortwhile so I still could tahan with what I wore (normal heat tech + normal shirt). The immigration queue was so long and my portable wifi was not working. Apparently there were many Singaporeans at the airport as the wifi list showed so many portable wifi networks except for mine. Thankfully the help line was responsive and I managed to get the wifi to work prior to getting a bus ticket to go to hotel.

The bus departed at 510pm and the sky was already dark. While waiting for the bus, I could not tahan and added another layer of clothing which was heat tech fleece jacket. The journey from Narita to Shinagawa was about 100 minutes and I was very impressed with my choice of hotel this time: Shinagawa Prince Hotel. It looks fantastic and the room (including the toilet) is huge!! The view is also amazing with Tokyo Tower visible from the window. Can see the outdoor swimming pool also but obviously noone is swimming at this temperature haha..

We quickly had dinner at hotel food court (since the food at the plane was too little) before exploring the area. Shinagawa JR station is just across the hotel and we went to top up Suica cards first. We explored the area at the other side of the station and I find the area is rather dead. Not sure if it is due to 23rd Dec being a national holiday.

There was a 7-11 with black logo at the hotel so we were not sure if it was the more expensive version of 7-11. Hence we bought water at other combini when we did the exploration. After that we went back to check and realise that the 7-11 at the hotel never jacked up the price. Good news!

On the way back to the hotel, I saw Zidane's poster at Shinagawa Station. Apparently there is Final Fantasy Yamanote Line (FFYL) event going on until 27 Dec. There is a poster featuring 1 FF character at each station in the Yamanote Line. Since the game is in Japanese, I am not too interested. I am more interested in the posters of the characters lol. Sadly Squall is at Osaki and I don't have any plan to go there.

That's all for the first day of this trip. I am still sick and I decided to start the Augmentin. I also took Tolak Angin -something I never tried before. Lol.. And oh gosh even though this hotel is damn good, the internet is damn slow sia!!!

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