Day 1 : Lost in Tokyo !

The day started with again a uneventful Malaysia Airlines flight to Narita Airport, transferring at Kuala Lumpur of course. Well sort of eventful despite the fact i got a real F.O.N. queen who sat next to me for both the SIN-KUL and KUL-NRT sectors. God! He was like "i dun like the taste of this guava juice. i want the orange juice." , (moments prior to landing)"i need some peanuts.. now" , (after a few bites of his OWN special meal)"i dun like the taste of this.. i want that beef". Thank god we had 3 japanese flight attendants onboard the NRT sector to pander to his needs.

Arrival in Tokyo-Narita Airport
I was just so tired these few days after all those calls that i just slept thru the red-eye flight without touching the IFE system. Landed in Narita Terminal 2 in the bright early morning. Sailed through customs/immigration - noted new fingerprinting system and photo-taking system at immigration. No problems.

Ok. So far so good. Went over to the Keisei Line counter to get a ticket on the Keisei Line to Oshiage --> Aoto, as recommended by the hotel. At first, i didn't want to speak my dead japanese (probably died in the closet after 5 yrs of medical school), but somehow the counter staff were just terribly uncomfortable in English. Oh god.. managed to get my point across somehow in japanese somehow.

One thing reminded me though.. everyone , i mean everyone from train attendant, ticketing agent and even the convenience store girl was just terribly polite and sweet to me. gosh, i have been working in nuh too long :-P

Getting lost in the train system
Okay for the uninitiated, the train system looks confusing so i asked and asked in my dead-but-now-awakening japanese. missd 1 or 2 stops but that's ok. all the good training in europe in carrying 30kg backpacks across amsterdam made this <10kg>Sakura Hotel , Jimbocho
Found my way amidst heavy human-traffic to Jimbocho, the bookshop district located sort of in central Tokyo. Very quiet and unremarkable hotel, with mini-sized rooms.. thank god for the free LAN line in the room (you have to set up the modem, phone jack and VDSL (not VDRL) line yourself though. 6000 yen a night ? Counter-staff were friendly enough.

Finding lunch from a vending machine
Ok finding lunch in Jimbocho. After roaming and roaming, there was this constant fear of entering a Japanese restaurant and struggling with the menu and my dead-but-now-slowly-awakening japanese. curiously i entered this little ramen shop with this vending machine thingy. apparently all you need to do is to choose the food item you want, and pop in the appropriate amount of cash , voila you get a meal ticket , give the ticket to the cook and within 1-2 mins, you have a bowl of fresh ramen/tempura. you still gotta noe how to read japanese coz' the illustrations are quite miserable. i found this really unique and convenient.

Shinjuku
Total chaos , i mean total chaos - this place was just teeming with people and wild-styled teenagers. quite unremarkable coz i am quite used to this kinda scene in new york.

Shibuya
UTTER chaos! i was just screaming to find a place to hide from the throngs of harajuku princesses and yakuza boys .. found refuge in a slightly more upmarket restaurant serving OMU rice (hehe) - they even had a french waitress that could speak english. so i let my japanese take a rest for the night haha.

TOKYU Shibuya
in front of Tokyo Shibuya was this amazing intersection where if the pedestrian lights turn green, a good number - say like >1000s ? of pedestrians crisscross an entire intersection at a particular instance. i was like a little termite scurrying back.